
Class _EiS? 



Book 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSET. 



THE 

VERILIES OF JESUS 



BY 

DAVID JAMES BURRELL, D. D., LL.D. 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 

150 Nassau Street, New York. 



Hhxx-tnol 

") / if 9 ^ 






Copyright, 1903, by 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 



V 

<»3 



5 



PREFACE. 



It would appear that in our study of the teachings 
of Jesus we have in some measure overlooked the 
significance of the word Verily. It occurs twenty- 
five times in its reduplicated form in John's Gospel 
and fifty times in its single form in the three synop- 
tists. Attention is called to some suggestive facts : 

First. The word thus rendered is found only in 
the discourses of Christ. The Apostles, though fully 
inspired to formulate and elaborate the truths which 
he proclaimed, nowhere make use of it. We infer 
that the word thus divinely copyrighted, as it were, 
conveys an intimation of singular authority, as of a 
divine seal, equivalent to a "Thus saith the Lord." 

Other words (yoip, S77 7rov, [lev Se, poll, ovtcos 
and jtxeV ovv) are thus rendered by the apostles : but 
Christ's verily is always amen (d/rjp) and he alone 
uses it in this way. 

Second. The word is one of special and peculiar 
emphasis. It corresponds in form and significance 
with the Hebrew amen, meaning " firm " or " trust- 
worthy," which was the pledge-sign of God's covenant 
with his people. The addition of " I say unto you " 

iii 



iv Prefa 



ce 



has precisely the value of a " Thus saith the Lord." 
This Verily is personified in Rev. iii. 14 as the Faith- 
ful and True Witness, from which it would appear 
that when Jesus uses the term he means " I give you 
a divine assurance of the truth and importance of 
what I now assert." 

Third. The word is attached to every one of the 
fundamental facts of the gospel, and only to such. 
From this we infer that, while the teachings of Jesus 
were intended to touch every point in the circumfer- 
ence of human life, he intended to impress these 
particular truths with special emphasis upon us. He 
wasted none of his Verilies. There is a sufficient 
reason, as we shall see, for each one of them. In 
weighing, measuring and comparing truths we shall 
know where to put the emphasis when we thus dis- 
cover where he placed it. 



CONTENTS 







Page 




I. 


Regeneration .... 


I 


II. 


Conversion ..... 


7 


III. 


Justification by Faith . 


12 


IV. 


The Unpardonable Sin 


20 


V. 


Freedom ..... 


• ^7 


VI. 


Immortal Life .... 


34 


VII. 


Life Out of Death 


39 


VIII. 


The Great Sign .... 


45 


IX. 


Optimism ..... 


52 


X. 


Privilege and Responsibility 


57 


XI. 


Rewards .... 


6S 


XII. 


Punishment ..... 


77 


XIII. 


Inasmuch ...... 


82 


XIV. 


Riches . . . . 


88 


XV. 


Giving ...... 


98 


XVI. 


His Equality with God 


105 


XVII. 


His Mediatorship . 


112 


XVIII. 


A Prophet in His Own Country 


117 


XIX. 


Our Greater Works 


123 


XX. 


Faith 


127 


XXI. 


The Prayer of Faith 


137 


XXII. 


Binding and Loosing . 


145 




V 







vi Contents. 

Page 

XXIII. Mutual Service . . . . 153 

XXIV. His Kind Foresight . . . 158 
XXV. Christ and the Bible . . .166 

XXVI. Heaven 170 

XXVII. The Second Advent . . . 177 
Index of Verily Passages . . .189 

Index of all Scripture Passages . .191 



The Verilies of Jesus. 



I. REGENERATION. 

Verily, verily, I say unto thee Except one be born anew, he can- 
not see the kingdom of God. John iii. 3. 

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born of water and 
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. John iii. 5. 

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that which we know, and 
bear witness of that which we have seen ; and ye receive not our 
witness. John iii. 11. 

In a letter from Whitefield to Benjamin Franklin, 
dated 1 75 2, occur these words : " As I find you grow- 
ing more and more famous in the learned world I would 
recommend to your diligent and unprejudiced study 
the mystery of the new birth. It is a most important 
study, and, when mastered, will richly answer all your 
pains. I bid you, my friend, remember that One at 
whose bar we shall both presently appear hath sol- 
emnly declared that without it we shall in nowise see 
his Kingdom." 

The reference is to the solemn words of Jesus ad- 
dressed to Nicodemus : " Verily, verily, I say unto 

1 



2 The Verilies of Jesus 

thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the king- 
dom of GodT — " Verily ', verily, I say unto thee, Ex- 
cept one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God!' — " Verily, verily, I 
say unto thee, We speak that which we do know, and 
bear witness of that which we have seen ; and ye re- 
ceive not our witness ." (John iii. 1-2 1.) 

The first thing said about Regeneration is that it is 
a mystery. " Born anew ? " What is that he saith ? 
How can a man be born anew when he is old ? We 
cannot comprehend. Will Christ attempt an explana- 
tion ? Not he. As well seek to teach a butterfly the 
philosophy of the torn chrysalis. The fact is enough. 
Hark to the wind ! It " bloweth where it will ; thou 
knowest not whence it cometh and whither it goeth." 
The fact gives token of itself, in rustling leaves, in 
the fury of the tempest, in flowers that bend and 
waters that murmur at its passing by. Thus does 
the mighty work of God's Spirit in the soul manifest 
itself. Its modus operandi is unknown, but its results 
are seen in the blooming and fruitful deserts of the 
spiritual world. The new birth finds its demonstra- 
tion in newness of life. " When God openeth the 
sluice of grace, the stream runneth through the whole 
man." All things are become new. There are new 
tastes, new principles of action, new habits of thought ; 
all showing themselves, as wine through a crystal gob- 
let, in the actions of the outer life. Yes, the new 
birth is a reality! How it comes, thou canst not 



Regeneration 



tell, but the fact is patent. Thou hearest the sound 
thereof. 

Observe, also, this is a radical change. Radical it 
must be, for the corruptions of human nature are all 
from the blood-center. Let us look on a life-like por- 
trait painted by a master hand, the full-length portrait 
of a sinner : " Full of all unrighteousness ; fornica- 
tion, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness ; full of 
envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity ; a whisperer, 
a backbiter, a hater of God ; despiteful, proud and 
boastful; an inventor of evil things, disobedient to 
parents, without understanding ; a covenant-breaker, 
without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful ! " 
Where will God begin to reform this man ? Mani- 
festly, at the heart. No outward furbishing will an- 
swer. There must be no putting of new wine into 
old bottles, or of new cloth upon an old garment. 
Blot out the portrait, and give us an angel clothed in 
white ! For " the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, 
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, 
temperance." All at once ? Oh, no ! Though the cit- 
adel be taken in an hour the reduction of the city is a 
life-long task. Regeneration is followed by santifica- 
tion ; patient continuance in well-doing, the building 
up of character, the continual growing to the full stat- 
ure of a man. 

Observe, again, there are diversities of operation 
though the same God worketh all in all. The wind 
sometimes advances with tempestuous power, in fierce 



4 The Verilies of Jesus 

swirls and onslaughts, uprooting the oaks and piling 
the billows into foaming crags ; at other times it 
breathes as an evening zephyr, cool from caverns of the 
north, or laden with the perfume of distant gardens. 
Saul of Tarsus must needs be blinded with a dazzling 
light ; but the penitent beholds the heavens dark as 
midnight. Our God is an infinitely versatile God. He 
is not limited to any inflexible plan. In his visible 
handiwork there are nowhere marks of uniformity. 
No two rubies or diamonds are precisely alike. Thus 
it is with all God's jewels. He hath diversities of oper- 
ation. To blind Bartimaeus he says, " Receive thy 
sight " ; the eyes of another he anoints with clay ; a 
third is required to wash in the pool of Siloam. So 
variously does light find its way into the chambers of 
the soul. 

Yet underlying this diverse experience is the same 
invariable fact. By Regeneration is always meant the 
conquest of the entire man. It is not the repairing of a 
defect in the soul ; it is the upbuilding of a new temple 
on ashes and dust, a new temple wherefrom the old 
spirits of passion and lust are departed, a temple fit for 
the indwelling of the Spirit. Regeneration is not re- 
form ; it is " a gain-birth," as Wickliffe called it. If any 
man be in Christ he is a new creature ; hopes, motives, 
appetites, all are become new ! It ispalingenesia. It is 
a resurrection from the dead : " If ye then be risen 
with Christ, seek those things which are above where 
Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." 



Regeneration 



Observe, again, Regeneration is wrought by divine 
power. There is no room for co-operation at this point. 
It is a birth anothen ; that is from above. " Not by- 
works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, 
but according to his mercy he saved us, through the 
washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy 
Spirit." Could the dead Lazarus, bound hand and 
foot with grave-clothes, do aught toward his own 
quickening ? No more can they who are dead in tres- 
passes and sins. God speaks, " Come forth ! " and they 
arise in newness of life. Thus are we born again, 
" not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the 
will of man, but of God." Can it be imagined that a 
soul should be self-begotten ? Who can estimate the 
distance between death and life ? Stupendous change ! 
If at the command of an audible voice Niagara were 
to stand still or to flow backward, that would be a tri- 
fling matter as compared with the arrest and reversal 
of the mighty forces of a human soul. Shall we pre- 
sume to think ourselves a party to that miracle ? Nay, 
in the overwhelming presence of omnipotence we 
bow like Elijah on Horeb with his face wrapped in 
his mantle. The power and the glory are God's. We 
are "born again," says Peter, "not of corruptible seed, 
but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which 
liveth and abideth." He is author and he is finisher. 
It is the Lord's doing and marvelous in our sight. 

So then we can do nothing ? Nay, the accomplish- 
ment of the work depends wholly upon us. 



6 The Verilies of Jesus 

We can, if we chose, resist and effectually thwart 
the gracious purposes of God. " Come," whispers the 
voice of the spirit ; and the soul may answer, " I will 
not ! " 

Or a man may invite the interposition of the Great 
Healer by placing himself as Bartimaeus did, in a re- 
ceptive attitude, by the roadside when he passeth by. 
We can be willing to be saved ; and there our part 
ends. We can actively will ; and whosoever will shall 
be saved. " Rise ! He calleth thee ! " said the disciples 
to the blind man. Did he resent the assumption of 
exclusive power on the part of Jesus ? Did he say, 
" I will not be healed unless I have somewhat to do 
with the healing, or unless the method is first explained 
to me ? " Nay, it is written, " He, casting away his 
garments, rose and came." And to those who are 
like-minded, the whole treasure house of God is open. 

" God is willing ; 
God is ready ; 
Doubt no more." 

He waits to regenerate us. Let us fling open our 
doors and he will enter. He will do everything but 
force the door. 

Be this understood; our posture in the work of 
Regeneration is not that of coeffrciency with God ; it is 
resistance on the one hand, or acceptance on the 
other ; it is either refusal, or willingness to be saved. 
The former is death ; the latter is life and immortality. 



II. 

CONVERSION. 

Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and become as little chil- 
dren, ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of heaven. 

Matt, xviii. 3. 

The disciples of Jesus were looking for the estab- 
lishment of a Kingdom, in which he was to assume the 
throne as Son of David and they to occupy places of 
honor and emolument. The keys had already been 
committed to Peter and the exchequer to Judas, and 
the others were naturally eager to be informed as to 
their respective places. Hence, not once, but again 
and again they inquired among themselves, " Which 
should be the greatest ? " The Lord knew what was 
in their hearts, and his method of solving their diffi- 
culty was worthy of the Wonderful Teacher. He 
took a little child and set him in the midst, and said, 
" Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn and become as 
little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the King- 
dom, of Heaven." (Matt, xviii. 3.) 

In the Revised Version the rendering is, " Except 
ye turn." Observe, Conversion is not regeneration, 
and must not be confused with it. Regeneration is 

7 



8 The Verilies of Jesus 

wholly of God; while Conversion, which follows 
regeneration, is wrought by man in co-operation 
with God. 

Our Lord was speaking to his disciples, who pre- 
sumably had been born again. The thing that 
remained for them to do was to turn themselves 
from sin to righteousness. In the case of Nico- 
demus the emphasis was placed on regeneration 
because it lies at the threshold of the Christian life ; 
but that accomplished, all the rest is " turning." 

Regeneration is instantaneous, but Conversion is 
the work of a lifetime. When viewed from the God- 
ward side, it is called sanctification, since in this 
matter the Holy Spirit co-operates with us. 

Paul exhorts the Philippians, " Work out your own 
salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who 
worketh in you." The emphasis is on the word 
" out." It is a mistake to think that salvation means 
only deliverance from the penalty of sin. This is 
merely the beginning, when the Lord says, " Go in 
peace : thy sins be forgiven thee." From that 
moment it devolves upon us to work out, to its utter- 
most, the great salvation which has been graciously 
begun in us. And this working out is the " turning," 
the "right about face," the making of character, the 
putting off the old man and putting on the new, the 
emerging from bondage, which, when consummated, 
means perfection, character, the full stature of man- 
hood, " the glorious liberty of the children of God." 



Conversion 9 

The most casual observer of the wonderful life of 
Jesus must have perceived his singular attitude toward 
childhood. His heart was wide open to the little peo- 
ple. This is ever a mark of the highest manhood. Of 
all the old masters, we love Murillo best, because he 
loved the children ; and there is something fine and 
beautiful always in his portraiture of them, even when 
his subjects are beggar-boys. For a like reason, we 
incline to Longfellow among the poets ; he loved the 
children, and they loved him. In his home at Cam- 
bridge they took great liberties with him, climbing over 
his chair and nestling in his arms. And this was his 
response : 

" I have you fast in my fortress, 
And will not let you depart, 
But will put you down in the dungeon, 
In the round-tower of my heart." 

It is a pleasure to think of " Lewis Carroll," a pro- 
fessor of dry mathematics, turning aside from log- 
arithms and the measurement of stellar distances to 
tell of little Alice in Wonderland. Now we should 
expect to find in Jesus, the ideal Man, the consumma- 
tion of this manly grace ; and we are not disappointed. 
Of all the great religious teachers of history, he alone 
is recorded to have opened his arms to the little ones, 
saying, " Suffer, the little children, and forbid them not, 
to come unto me." When he took a little child upon his 
knee, and, looking around on his disciples, said, " Verily } 



io The Verilies of Jesus 

I say unto you , whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom 
of God as this one, he shall in no wise enter therein" it 
was in line with his entire precept and example. He ad- 
monished the religionists of his time to give no offense 
to the children, saying, " It is profitable for him that a 
great millstone should be hanged about his neck and 
that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea." He 
identified himself with the welfare of the children, as- 
suring his hearers that to give one of them a cup of 
cold water was like quenching the thirst of his own 
parched lips : " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of 
these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto 
me." 

But the interest of Christ in children goes deeper 
still. They were redeemed by his sacrifice. In Hol- 
man Hunt's picture of " The Flight into Egypt," the 
spirits of the murdered Innocents are represented as 
following in the wake of the little caravan ; a sweet- 
faced company, awaking out of death with glad sur- 
prise in their faces and trooping after " like a trail of 
rosy clouds." In some of the earlier theological con- 
troversies we find the phrase limbus infantum, " the 
hell of children." What a nightmare is here ! It is 
sometimes said that John Calvin asserted that there 
were "children in hell a span long." While it is 
admitted that Calvin inclined to a somewhat stern view 
of the divine justice, it is only fair to say that in all 
his voluminous writings there is not a word to war- 
rant this accusation. And, indeed, it is an open ques- 



Conversion 1 1 

tion whether any theologian, living or dead, can be 
held responsible for it. In any case, the truth lies at 
the very opposite, as set forth in the exquisite 
prophecy of Zechariah : " Thus saith the Lord of 
hosts, The streets of the city shall be full of boys and 
girls playing in the streets thereof." (Zech. viii. 5.) 

The child on Jesus' knees is placed before us as an 
object lesson of Conversion. It is not to be inferred 
that children are sinless ; else Jesus would not have pro- 
ceeded to speak of them as " lost " and of himself as 
" seeking them." (Matt, xviii. 11-14.) But in child- 
hood there are some characteristics of true greatness, 
which are well worthy of our imitation : such as ( 1 ) 
humility, (2) freedom from selfish and sordid ambition, 
(3) simple trust and confidence, (4) affection, (5) de- 
pendence, (6) teachableness, (7) an obedient spirit. 

We are to " turn " away from the habit of sin toward 
these traits of character. This is Conversion, and 
this is the life-calling of a Christian. If we are dis- 
posed to " turn," in this manner, the Spirit helpeth 
our infirmities. God worketh in us ; so that we con- 
stantly grow in grace. The end of Conversion is 
character. Our " turning " is growing, and growing 
brings us at length '• unto the measure of the stature 
of the fulness of Christ." (Eph. iv. 13.) 



III. 

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you , He that heareth my word, and be- 
lieveth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into 
judgment ; but hath passed out of death into life. John v. 24. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour cometh, and now is, when 
the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God ; and they that hear 
shall live. John v. 25. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw 
signs, but because ye ate of the loaves, and were filled. John vi. 26. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, It was not Moses that gave you 
the bread out of heaven ; but my Father giveth you the true bread 
out of heaven. John vi. 32. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth hath eternal life. 

John vi. 47. 
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son 
of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. 

John vi. 53. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door 
into the fold of the sheep but climbeth up some other way, the same 
is a thief and a robber. John x. 1. 

A man must repent before he believes in Christ. 
But repentance is not a saving grace ; it has value 
only as it leads to something further on. The pain of 
a physical malady has no curative virtue ; but it is this 
pain which inclines the patient to ring the doctor's 
bell. So John the Baptist goes before Christ with 

12 



Justification by Faith 13 

his cry, " Repent ye ! " since without repentance there 
is no adequate sense of need, nor disposition to accept 
Christ. 

But the penitent is not saved ; he has only dis- 
covered his need of salvation. He knows his malady ; 
now how shall he be cured of it ? To pause here is 
death. One in a sinking boat must not be satisfied 
with stopping the leak ; the boat must be bailed out. 
A man head-over-ears in debt cannot recover his credit 
by resolving to pay cash in the future ; he must some- 
how cancel his past obligations. If a penitent were 
never to commit another sin, the " handwriting of or- 
dinances " would still be against him. The record of 
the past remains ; and it will confront him in the judg- 
ment unless it be disposed of. The past ! The mis- 
lived past ! What shall be done about it ? 

This brings us to the matter in hand : What shall 
I do to be saved ? 

The one thing needful is to believe in Christ. 

Our Lord at the beginning of his ministry said to 
Nicodemus, " God so loved the world, that he gave his 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him, 
should not perish, but have eternal life." And to 
make the matter perfectly clear to this learned rabbi, 
he resorted to the kindergarten method, using an ob- 
ject lesson : " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the 
wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up 
(that is, crucified) ; that whosoever believeth may in 
him have eternal life." 



14 The Verilies of Jesus 

Our Lord puts the redoubled emphasis of his verily 
on this fact. To the deriding Jews he said, " Verily ■, 
verily ', / say unto you, He that heareth my word and 
believeth him that sent me hath eternal life" adding 
with repetitive earnestness, " Vetily verily -, / say 
unto you, The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead 
shall hear the voice of the Son of God ; and they that 
hear shall live!' (John v. 24, 25.) The reference in 
this instance is not to the final resurrection but to the 
resurrection here and now ; that is, the spiritual quick- 
ening of those dead in trespasses and sin. 

On another occasion, just after the feeding of the 
five thousand, he said to the same class of cavilers, 
" Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me not because 
ye saw signs but because ye ate of the loaves and 
were filled ; " and, when reminded of the manna, he 
continued, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, It was not 
Moses that gave you the bread out of heaven, but my 
Father give th you the true bread out of heaven. I am 
the living bread!' Then he solemnly advised them 
of the necessity of appropriating him by faith, as the 
condition of salvation, on this wise, " Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, He that believeth hath eternal life; " 
and to make the matter still clearer, he added, keeping 
up the similitude of the loaves, " Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, 
and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves!' 
(John vi. 26, 47, 53.) By this we are given to under- 
stand that the sinner must appropriate Christ by faith 



Justification by Faith 15 

as one partakes of food : so that the life of Christ 
shall be assimilated and become, as it were, flesh of his 
flesh and bone of his bone. To really believe in him 
is so to appropriate him that one may say, " I no 
longer live, Christ liveth in me." 

The same truth is set forth with a like emphasis in 
the saying of Jesus, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, I 
am the door; " and again, " Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, He that entereth not in by the door into the fold 
of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same 
is a thief and a robber." (John x. 1-7.) If this means 
anything it means that the sinner must be saved 
by believing in Christ, and that there is no other 
way. 

But what is it to " believe in Christ ? " It is easy 
to say, " Come to Christ," and, " Accept Christ," and 
" Believe in Him ; " but just here occurs the bewilder- 
ment. These are oftentimes mere shop-worn phrases 
to the unsaved, however simple they may appear to 
those who have entered on the Christian life. 

To believe in Christ is, first, to credit the historic 
record of his life. Once on a time he lived among 
men, preached, wrought miracles, suffered and died 
on the accursed tree. So far all will agree ; but 
there is clearly no saving virtue in an intellectual ac- 
ceptance of an undisputed fact. 

It means, second, to believe that Jesus was what he 
claimed to be. And this claim is perfectly clear. To 
the woman of Samaria who sighed for the coming of 



1 6 The Verilies of Jesus 

Messiah, he said, " I that speak unto thee am he." 
No reader of the Scripture can misunderstand his 
meaning, since the prophecy of the Messiah runs like 
a golden thread through all its pages from the prote- 
vangel, " The seed of woman shall bruise the serpent's 
head," to the prediction of Malachi, " The sun of 
righteousness shall arise with healing in its wings." 

But, more than this, Jesus claimed that as Messiah 
he was the only-begotten and co-equal Son of God. 
He came forth from God and, after finishing his work, 
was to return to God and reassume " the glory which 
he had with the Father before the world was." It 
was this oft-repeated assertion which so mortally of- 
fended the Jews that was the occasion of his arrest on 
the charge of blasphemy. He persisted in his claim, 
and was put to death for " making himself equal with 
God." It must be seen, therefore, that no man can be 
said to believe in Christ who is not prepared to affirm, 
without demur or qualification, that he was what he 
claimed to be. 

It means, third, to believe that Jesus did what he 
said he came into the world to do. And here again 
there can be no doubt or perad venture. He said : 
"The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, 
but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for 
many." His death was to be the purchase-price of 
redemption. It follows that no man can truly believe 
in Christ without assenting to the fact that the sav- 
ing power is in his death ; as it is written, " The blood 



Justification by Faith 17 

of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin," and, " Apart 
from shedding of blood there is no remission." He 
came into the world to die for sinners, that they by 
his death might enter into life ; he came to take our 
place before the bar of the offended law, "he was 
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for 
our iniquities, and with his stripes we are healed ; " 
he came to " bear our sins in his own body on the 
tree ; " and to believe in Christ is to believe that he did 
what he came to do. 

It means, fourth — and now we come to the very 
heart of the matter — to believe that Christ means 
precisely what he says. He says to the sinner, " The 
Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins." 
He says, " Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise 
cast out." He says, " He that believeth hath eternal 
life." At this point belief means personal appropria- 
tion ; acceptance, immediate, here, now. It is to make 
an end of doubt and perplexity and all questioning, 
by closing in with the overtures of divine mercy. It 
is to lay down one's arms and make an unconditional 
surrender. It is to take the proffered hand of the 
Saviour in an everlasting covenant of peace. It is to 
say, " My Lord, my life, my sacrifice, my Saviour and 
my all ! " 

But just here is where many hesitate and fail. They 
do not " screw their courage to the sticking point." 
They come up to the line, but do not take the step 
that crosses it. They do not summon resolution to 

B 



1 8 The Verilies of Jesus 

say, " I will ! " They put away the outstretched hand, 
and so fall short of salvation. 

The will must act. The prodigal in the far country 
will stay there forever unless his resolution cries, " I 
will arise and go ! " The resolution is an appropriating 
act. It makes Christ mine ; it links my soul with his, 
as the coupler links the locomotive to the loaded train. 
It grasps his outstretched hand ; it seals the compact 
and inspires the song : 

" ' Tis done, the great transaction's done, 
I am my Lord's and he is mine 1 
He drew me, and I followed on, 

Charmed to confess the voice divine. 

" High heaven that hears the solemn vow, 
That vow renewed shall daily hear ; 
Till in life's latest hour I bow 

And bless in death a bond so dear 1 " 

The gift of God is eternal life ; but the benefit of 
the gift is conditioned on our acceptance of it. The 
manna lies about our feet " white and plenteous as 
hoar frost," but it will not save us from famishing un- 
less we eat it. The water gushes from the rock, but 
we shall die of thirst unless we dip it up and drink it. 
Christ on the cross saves no man ; it is only when 
Christ is appropriated that he saves us. We must 
make him ours. We must grasp his extended hand. 
Luther said, " The important thing is the possessive 
pronOun, first person, singular." One of the early 
fathers said, " It is the grip on the blood that saves 



Justification by Faith 19 

us." Christ stands waiting — he offers life for the 
taking. Who will have it ? The worst of sinners 
can make it his very own by saying with all his 
heart, " I will ! I do ! " 



IV. 

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 

Verily I say unto you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto the"sons 
of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme. 

Mark iii. 28. 

If there is a sin which carries the soul beyond the 
reach of mercy, it behooves us to inform ourselves 
about it. The common view, which is quite incorrect, 
has led to much morbid introspection and reduced 
many to a state of religious melancholia. I know of 
such an one in the asylum to-day, sitting with his head 
in his hands, a wild light in his eyes, given over to 
utter despair under the conviction that God has 
forsaken him. 

It is in order to inquire, at the outset, if there is 
any such thing as an " unpardonable sin." Here the 
Scriptures speak with no uncertain sound. It is 
referred to particularly in four passages : 

" And every one who shall speak a word against the 
Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ; but unto him that 
blasphemeth against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be 
forgiven." (Luke xii. 10.) 

" Verity I say unto you, All their sins shall be for- 

20 



The Unpardonable Sin 2 1 

given unto the sons of men, and their blasphemies 
wherewith soever they shall blaspheme ; but whosoever 
shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never 
forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin." (Mark 
iii. 28, 29.) This is explained in the context ; the 
Pharisees had referred the miracles of Jesus, which 
were wrought by the divine Spirit within him, to the 
influence of devils. 

" For as touching those who were once enlightened 
and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made par- 
takers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of 
God, and the powers of the age to come, and then fell 
away, it is impossible to renew them again unto 
repentance ; seeing they crucify to themselves the 
Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." 
(Hebrews vi. 4-6.) Observe, the sin of apostacy, here 
indicated, is set forth specifically as an offense against 
the Spirit of God. 

" If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto 
death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for 
them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto 
death : not concerning this do I say that he should 
make request." (1 John v. 16.) 

The testimony of the Scriptures in these passages 
is unmistakable ; and, as believers in the divine word, 
we are bound to receive it. There is truth in the 
saying, " It is a sin to steal a pin," but it is obviously 
a greater sin to steal a purse or an inheritance. It 
was a sin for the rich farmer to take away the ewe 



22 The Verilies of Jesus 

lamb of his humble neighbor, but it was a far greater 
for David to rob Uriah of his wife. In every court of 
justice such distinctions are made as grand larceny 
and petty larceny, murder and manslaughter : and cor- 
responding penalties are inflicted. Much depends on 
motive and much on circumstance. The bell-ringer of 
Saint Germain, who, in 1 5 72, gave the signal for the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew, was not without guilt ; 
but guiltier was the captain of the Royal Guard, who led 
the assault upon the innocent Huguenots ; guiltier still 
King Charles, who standing in the balcony of the Louvre 
on that fateful night, with arquebus in hand, looked 
down upon the scene of carnage, crying, " Kill ! kill ! " 
but guiltiest of all the mitred man at Rome who 
signed the death-warrant, and who, when the bloody 
deed was accomplished, struck off a memorial coin 
bearing on one side his own name and on the other, 
Strages Ugonottorum. And judgment is ever measured 
by desert, the harvest is according to the seed-sowing. 
Thus Jesus said, " That servant, which knew his lord's 
will, and made not ready, nor did according to his 
will shall be beaten with many stripes ; but he that 
knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be 
beaten with few stripes." (Luke xii. 47.) 

Another fact to be considered is that all sins what- 
soever are pardonable. This is the meaning of the 
cross : " The Son of man hath authority on earth to 
forgive sin." He is able to save unto the uttermost 
all that will come unto him. Unto the uttermost ! 



The Unpardonable Sin 23 

No sin is beyond the reach of his pardoning grace. 
Sins that are scarlet are made white as snow. The 
penitent thief who had passed his life in deeds of vio- 
lence was pardoned in articulo mortis. The Mag- 
dalene, from whom all pure women drew aside their 
garments, came to Jesus in contrition, and he forgave 
her all. Peter denied his Lord thrice, saying, " I know 
not the man!" and he went out and wept bitterly; 
and Christ restored him. Judas — alas ! had Judas 
but known the infinitude of divine grace, his shame 
would not have led him to remorse, his grief would not 
have driven him to despair. Instead of rushing unfor- 
given into eternity through the dark gate of suicide, 
he might have thrown himself, with abandon of faith, 
upon the bosom of a gracious God. God, for Jesus' 
sake, is a great Forgiver. There is blood enough in 
the fountain, which he has opened for uncleanness, to 
wash away the sins of the guiltiest and most desperate. 
He blots them out as a hot stylus erases the inscrip- 
tion on a tablet of wax. He removes them from us 
" as far as the east is from the west." He casts them 
behind his back. He sinks them in oblivion ; he re- 
members them no more against us. 

Nevertheless, there is one sin which is unpardonable, 
in the necessity of the case. This statement is not so 
paradoxical as it seems. It is quite consistent with 
what we have been saying, as will appear from the fol- 
lowing facts : 

(1) The natural heart is biased against the truth and 



24 The Verilies of Jesus 

goodness. It matters not whether the occasion of 
this bias be referred to the fall or to heredity ; the fact 
itself is indisputable ; and every man is sensible of it. 
The virus is in our blood : and, alas, we would not 
have it otherwise. We prefer to sin. No sin was ever 
yet committed except by preference, else it would not 
be sinful. No man can lay his finger on any guilty 
thing in his life of which he must not say, " I might 
have avoided it." 

(2) This natural bias cannot be offered in exten- 
uation of our guilt, since it is offset by the influence 
of the Holy Spirit. The good God has not left us to 
ourselves, but has put us under the power of his Spirit, 
who continually strives with us. He enables us to 
distinguish between right and wrong. He warns, re- 
monstrates, persuades and urges us to avoid evil and 
do good. And when we sin, the Spirit exercises his 
most important function in offering us the benefit of 
pardoning grace. He puts us in remembrance of the 
things that Jesus said and did in our behalf. He 
stands ever ready to apply to our sinful souls the power 
of the atoning blood. 

(3) But a man may harden his heart against the Holy 
Spirit ; and he who does this effectually is guilty of 
the unpardonable sin. There are three steps to death: 
One of them is referred to in Ephesians iv. 30 : " Grieve 
not the Holy Spirit of God ; " as when wayward chil- 
dren grieve a loving mother. The second step down- 
ward was indicated by Stephen, in his address to the 



The Unpardonable Sin 25 

Sanhedrin : " Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in 
heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit : 
as your fathers did, so do ye." We thus resist when 
we refuse to hear the Spirit's warnings and admoni- 
tions. The third and final step is designated in I 
Thessalonians v. 19 : " Quench not the Spirit." A 
spark may be quenched in more ways than one. It 
may be stamped out, smothered, or merely left to die. 
The Holy Spirit may be effectually repelled by an im- 
pious affront like that of the Pharisees when they re- 
ferred his work to Beelzebub ; or his voice may be 
drowned in the confusion of Vanity Fair ; or he may 
sadly take his departure after years of persistent neg- 
lect and inattention. Let the spark alone, and it will 
die ; and with it, hope goes out forever. 

It appears then that the unpardonable sin is the 
ultimate rejection of Christ as he is offered to the 
soul by the Spirit of God. While all sins are pardon- 
able, it is obvious that the rejection of pardon is be- 
yond remedy. 

It is the closing by the soul itself of the only door 
into eternal life. 

Our Lord refers to this sin of sins in his Parable of 
the Vineyard : 

" There was a man that was a householder, who 
planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged 
a wine-press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to 
husbandmen, and went into another country. And 
when the season of the fruits drew near, he sent his 



26 The Verilies of Jesus 

servants to the husbandmen, to receive his fruits. 
And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, 
and killed another and stoned another. Again, he sent 
other servants more than the first : and they did unto 
them in like manner. But afterward he sent unto 
them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But 
the husbandmen, when they saw the son, said among 
themselves, this is the heir ; come, let us kill him, and 
take his inheritance. And they took him, and cast 
him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him. When 
therefore the lord of the vineyard shall come, what 
will he do unto those husbandmen ? They say unto 
him, He will miserably destroy those miserable men." 
(Matt. xxi. 33-41.) 

If a man were a prisonor in a besieged city and were 
informed of a secret gate leading to freedom, how long 
would he hesitate to take advantage of it ? We are 
shut up in the City of Doom ; and there is one gate 
only to safety. The voice of the Spirit calls, " Escape 
for your life ! " How long will you tarry ? I put you 
in remembrance of the word which is written, " Seek 
ye Jehovah while he may be found, call ye upon him 
while he is near : let the wicked forsake his way, and 
the unrighteous man his thoughts : and let him return 
unto Jehovah, and he will have mercy upon him ; and 
to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." There is 
no time to lose. Grieve not the Spirit ; resist not the 
Spirit ; quench not the Spirit. To-day is yours ; to- 
morrow is God's. 



V. 

FREEDOM. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the 
bondservant of sin. John viii. 34. 

The teaching of Jesus, purporting to cover every 
phase and relation of human life, would be fatally in- 
complete were it silent as to Freedom. All great 
masters, philosophers, statemen have addressed them- 
selves to this theme. We are not surprised, therefore, 
to find that Jesus has somewhat to say, that his say- 
ing is new and singular, and that he puts deep emphasis 
upon it. Here is the manifesto : " Verily r , verily I say 
unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bond- 
servant of sin. And the bondservant abide th not in 
the house for ever: the son abide th for ever. If there- 
fore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free in- 
deed!' 1 (John viii. 34-36.) 

A glance at the context will add to our interest in 
this saying. It was uttered on " the day of tempta- 
tion," and was called forth by the hostility of the 
leading Jews. In the morning, as Christ was preach- 
ing to the early worshipers in the court of the temple, 

27 



28 The Verilies of Jesus 

they brought to him the woman taken in adultery ; and 
flinging her down on the pavement they demanded, 
" Moses commandeth us to stone such : what then 
say est thou of her ? " This was the beginning of a 
running fire of questions which continued throughout 
the day. 

Not a few were persuaded by the wisdom of Jesus 
exhibited in the protracted encounter of this memo- 
rable day, that he was really the Messiah. This was, 
however, a mere intellectual impression and of brief 
duration. When he said, " If ye abide in my word, 
then are ye truly my disciples ; and ye shall know the 
truth, and the truth shall made you free," they hotly 
resented it. " We are Abraham's seed," they said, 
" and have never yet been in bondage to any man ; 
how say est thus then, < Ye shall be made free ? ' " This 
gave him the occasion of putting forth his doctrine of 
freedom. 

I. He begins with a Verily, and adds manifold em- 
phasis by doubling and sealing it, " Verily, verily, I say 
unto you." Nor is this emphasis overdone, when we 
consider the tremendous part which the philosophy of 
freedom plays in human thought and experience. 

II. The emphasis of the Verily is laid on the nega- 
tive side of the proposition : namely, the bondage of 
sin. Nor is this without reason ; since freedom is 
impossible until the captive feels the burden of his 
chains. 

There is no bondage like that of sin. No galley- 



Freedom 29 

slave toils at the oar as does the sinner under the lash of 
his hard taskmaster. And for what ? " The wages 
of sin is death." The sinner pales at the mere men- 
tion of hell, yet works his fingers to the bone to win 
it! 

The sinner is born in bondage. He inherits it. 
From the earliest impulse of childhood, his tendency is 
toward sin. Once this was called " the doctrine of origi- 
nal sin," and theologians were laughed at for entertain- 
ing it. But in these days it is called " heredity," scien- 
tists stand voucher for it, and to doubt or cavil would be 
quite out of harmony with the spirit of the age. 

But the bondage of sin is more than a natural ten- 
dency : as time passes it develops into habit. There 
is a world of meaning in the word " habit : " it is 
derived from the Latin habere, to have or to hold. 
We speak of a suit of clothing as a " habit," because it 
holds or " fits " us. So sin as a habit, in process of 
indulgence, adjusts itself, so to speak, to the curves 
and angles of the soul. Presently it " fits like a 
glove : " or let us rather say, it fits like the shirt of 
Nessus, which could not be removed without taking 
flesh and blood with it. 

So here is a great truth : " Every one that com- 
mitteth sin is the bondservant of sin." Every drunk- 
ard, every victim of any vicious habit whatsoever, 
responds to it with a yea and amen. And this is the 
confession which must be made before deliverance 
comes. The slave must feel as Paul did when he 



3<d The Verilies of Jesus 

cried, " Wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver 
me out of the body of this death ? " before his heart 
can utter the cry of the ransomed freedman, " I thank 
God through Jesus Christ our Lord ! " (Rom. 
vii. 25.) 

III. Our Lord takes occasion in his discourse to 
correct a wrong definition of Freedom. The Jews 
thought of themselves as free by inheritance, " We be 
Abraham's children ! " He might have retorted by 
reminding them of their bondage in Egypt, their cap- 
tivity in Babylon, their subjugation by Rome ; but he 
had a deeper purpose than merely to expose a sophism. 
He proceeded to show how, under the guise of 
religion, they were bondslaves to the letter while 
oblivious of the spirit of the law. They cherished 
the oracles, while making them of none effect by their 
traditions. They eulogized the prophets, while reject- 
ing Christ, who was enshrined in prophecy. They 
made broad their phylacteries and wrote the law as 
frontlets between their eyes, while their hands were 
full of blood. They paid tithe of mint, anise and 
cummin, while withholding their hearts from God. 
Thus their religion was a mere superstition, and they, 
boasting of their freedom, were in real bondage. 
They were in Abraham's household like Ishmael the 
son of the bondwoman, not like Isaac the son of 
the patriarch's wife. (Gal. iv. 22-31.) 

IV. Another spurious form of Freedom is exposed 
by the teaching of Jesus. There are those who hold 



Freedom 3 1 

that liberty is license, or deliverance from restraint : 
as Milton says : 

" License they mean, when they cry liberty : 
They bawl for liberty in their senseless mood, 
And still revolt when Truth would set them free." 

Such are " free-thinkers," who reject all rules and 
restraints in reasoning; "free-lovers," who tread down 
the salutary hedges of personal and social life ; " free- 
lances," like the roving knights of the middle ages, 
who knew no lord nor captain ; " free-booters," who, 
sailing without chart or compass, ravage the open seas. 

Which is the freer ; the comet that whizzes aim- 
lessly through space, or the planet that wheels in its 
normal orbit, never deviating an hair's breadth through 
countless ages ? 

Which is freer, the locomotive that jumps the 
track and ditches itself, or the one that honors the 
law of its being by smoothly rolling along the rails 
provided for it ? 

When seafaring men speak of a ship " sailing free," 
what do they mean ? That she has ceased to obey 
her rudder and cut loose from restraint ? No, the 
very opposite. They mean that she is running easily 
in perfect obedience to sails and steering-gear. 

V. And this brings us to Christ's definition of 
Freedom which, broadly expressed, is this : perfect 
obedience to perfect law. This is the precise content of 
his words, " Ye shall know the truth and the truth 
shall make you free. " 



32 The Verilies of Jesus 

There is no greater fact in all the terminology of na- 
tions than this. If France had accepted Christ's def- 
inition of Freedom as here given, there never would 
have been a Reign of Terror. If the world had 
harkened to his philosophy of Freedom we should 
have been spared libraries of anarchical folly and oceans 
of blood. 

The Son set us free by paying our ransom from 
sin and turning us into the voluntary and joyous 
grooves of truth and righteousness. He gives us to 
understand that wrong living is bondage and right liv- 
ing is Freedom ; that a man is never free until he has 
put off the habit of license and put on the habit of 
perfect obedience. 

He proposes to set the soul free from sin, by expiat- 
ing the past and opening the gateway of a holy 
life. He proposes to set the soul free from the law, by 
placing obedience on the high level of love, transform- 
ing duty into pleasure and enabling the soul to say, " I 
rejoice to do thy will ! " He proposes to make the 
soul free in service, not from it. None but the truth- 
finder is really free to serve himself by making the 
most of himself, his fellow by doing good as he has 
opportunity unto all men, and God by continually 
glorifying him. 

It is supremely important that we should under- 
stand this matter. Christ put his " Verily, verily" 
in the right place, as usual. To make a mistake as 
to the sanctions of personal freedom is to leave the 



Freedom 33 

king's highway of righteousness and diverge into 
the open country of error. If, having been ransomed 
by the Son, we have accepted him, the truth has made 
us free. Therefore, as Paul said to the Galatians, 
" For freedom did Christ set us free ; stand fast there- 
fore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage." 
Shall we go back to legalism ? Back to ceremonialism ? 
Back to Antinomianism ? No, never ; since Christ 
hath made us free. 
c 



VI. 
IMMORTAL LIFE. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour cometh, and now is, when 
the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God ; and they that hear 
shall live. John v. 25. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my word, he shall 
never see death. John viii. 51. 

Our Lord healed a paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda. 
It was a blessed deed ; but, alas ! it was wrought on 
the Sabbath day. The Pharisees were offended be- 
cause he had broken one of their most stringent laws. 
He justified himself in these words : " My Father 
worketh even until now, and I work." By this they 
were angered the more, because " He made himself 
equal with God." He went on to show his one- 
ness with the Father ; how all his works were by the 
Father working through him. And what were these ? 
The opening of blind eyes, the wiping away of leprosy, 
the healing of palsy and other infirmities. These, how- 
ever, were but slight tokens of divine energy as com- 
pared with the mighty works which were presently to 
be accomplished by the Father working through him. 

34 



Immortal Life 35 

« Verily ', verily ', I say unto you, He that heareth my 
word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, 
and cometh not into judgment; but hath passed out of 
death into life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The 
hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the 
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live!' 
(John v. 24, 25.) 

He was addressing the Pharisees on their own 
ground. They believed in the resurrection of the dead. 
In this they were at odds with the Sadducees, who re- 
jected all things supernatural. Were not the Scrip- 
tures full of this glorious doctrine ? Had not the 
earliest of the patriarchs said, " I know that my Re- 
deemer liveth, and in my flesh shall I see God ? " 
Had not David sung, " God will redeem my soul from 
the power of Sheol ? " Had not other prophets seen 
wondrous foregleams of it; as when Ezekiel stood 
in the midst of the valley of vision where the scattered 
bones were quickened by the breath of God ? The 
Pharisees believed in the Scriptures, and, therefore, 
they believed in the resurrection. 

But here is something different. "The hour 
cometh, and now is" The reference is to something 
going on here and now — a spiritual resurrection ; 
the coming forth out of darkness into light, and out of 
bondage into the glorious liberty of the children of 
God. The same truth was set forth by our Lord in 
comforting Martha for her brother's death. He said, 
" Thy brother shall rise again." And Martha an- 



36 The Verilies of Jesus 

swered, " I know that he shall rise again in the resur- 
rection at the last day." Jesus said, " I am the resur- 
rection and the life ; he that believeth on me, though 
he die, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and be- 
lieveth on me shall never die." 

On another occasion when vindicating himself from 
the accusations of his enemies, he repeated this truth 
with double emphasis : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
If a man keep my word he shall never see death." 
(John viii. 51.) 

1 . Sin is death. This is the most dreadful of the 
many figures under which it is represented. Not that 
the sinner has no semblance of life, but all the faculties 
and powers of his higher nature have lost their vigor. 
He has a name to live, but is dead. An ice-floe drifted 
from the delta of the river Lena, on the northern coast 
of Siberia, clear across into Davis Strait. On this 
ice-floe was the body of one of the crew of the ill-fated 
Jeannette. If this man had come by the shortest 
route he had made a journey of three thousand five 
hundred miles ; if by the longest, almost seven thou- 
sand. A long journey for a dead man ; yet there are 
men all around us, dead as to their higher natures, 
performing all the functions of common life. They 
toil in our workshops and offices ; they eat, drink, 
marry, and are given in marriage ; they accumulate 
wealth, sit in places of authority, and yet are dead in 
trespasses and sins. This is not a mere metaphor. 
The death of the spiritual nature, in such cases, is 



Immortal Life 37 

awfully real ; and, unless there be a real resurrection, 
the end must be eternal death. 

11. Salvation is renewal of life. "I came," said 
Jesus, " that they may have life, and that they may 
have it abundantly." At his touch the soul is quick- 
ened from the dead. He who stood at the grave of 
Lazarus, and said " Come forth ! " with such power 
that the shrouded dead arose, is able in like manner 
to restore those who are under the mortal sentence of 
the broken law. Was it wonderful that Lazarus 
should come forth ? It is far more wonderful that the 
word of Jesus Christ should have power to restore the 
functions of a soul buried in the tomb of unbelief. 

An old-time Quaker preacher had a strange expe- 
rience at his conversion. He fell asleep and dreamed. 
He seemed to be dead, and laid out for his burial, 
when a shining face came and bent over him, saying 
softly, " The man is dead." Then another came and 
laid a hand over his heart, and said, " It does not 
throb ; he 's dead." Then another came and laid a 
hand upon his flesh, saying, " It is cold ; he is surely 
dead." So one by one came angels and stood around 
his couch, till one kindlier face than all the rest came 
and looked upon him, lifted his hand, and said, " Nay, 
what is this ? A nail print in his palm, and a nail 
print in his other palm. This man is not dead ; he 
has been crucified ! He has been crucified with Christ 
and lives with him ! " On awaking he found the place 
in the Scripture where it is written, " I have been 



38 The Verilies of Jesus 

crucified with Christ ; and it is no longer I that live, 
but Christ liveth in me." 

The secret of spiritual life is indeed to enter into 
fellowship with the death of Jesus. We begin to live 
when we stand under his cross and feel one drop of 
his warm blood falling upon us. " The life is in the 
blood." The life of every son of man is in the blood 
of the only begotten Son of God. To believe in him 
is to come forth out of the sepulchre into the world of 
beauty and gladness. Oh that we might all know the 
power of his death, that we might also be partakers of 
the power of his life ! Oh that we all might be able 
to say in truth and sincerity, " I have been crucified 
with Christ ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ 
liveth in me ! " 



VII. 
LIFE OUT OF DEATH. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the 
earth and die, it abideth by itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth much 
fruit. John xii. 24. 

Here is a statement of a great truth : Mors janua 
vitce. It is the law of the acorn, of the chrysalis, of 
the grave-yard ; life out of death, and out of death 
only. " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain 
of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself 
alone ; but if it die, it beareth much fruity (John 
xii. 24.) What is this that the husbandman scatters 
over his ploughed field ? Bread. The bread which is 
necessary to sustain his own life ; bread for his chil- 
dren's hunger. Why then, O husbandman, do you 
thus broadcast it ? Why throw it away ? " Lift up 
your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white 
already unto harvest ! " The loaded wains come 
groaning to the granaries. The family gathers about 
the generous board. The corn of wheat died, and 
behold, it has passed into a vaster life. 

The Lord Christ died. See him yonder upon the 

39 



40 The Verilies of Jesus 

cross, his limbs distorted in the last anguish. No 
need of any death certificate here. " Is he quite 
dead ? " asked the centurion of his guard. " Aye, this 
is the spear which I thrust into his side but a moment 
ago ; and when it was withdrawn, it gave sure token 
that his heart had ceased to beat." The Jews, Priests 
and Rabbis passed by, and, noting the pallor of his 
face, they said, " The Man of Nazareth is dead ; we 
shall hear no further of his doctrines and wonderful 
works. He will trouble us no more." The disciples 
as they loosed him from the tree felt of his hands, 
and they were cold ; and of his pulse, and it was still. 
" We hoped," they lamented, " that it was he who 
should deliver Israel ; but, alas ! he is dead." 

Dead ? Then why all this commotion ? Why this 
controversy among the children of men ? Is it possi- 
ble that the world is still moved, troubled, about a dead 
man — one who died and was buried eighteen centuries 
ago? 

What does this mean ? There are some hundreds 
of millions of people who gather at intervals about a 
table where a frugal repast is spread. They break the 
bread and say, " Lo, thus his flesh was bruised." They 
pour the wine and say, " Lo, thus his blood was shed." 
And then they lift their hearts and voices and speak 
with him as a living Christ, laying all their plans and 
purposes and hopes before him. 

And what means this ever increasing multitude of 
men and women who declare that he, with a mighty 



Life Out of Death 41 

hand, has lifted them out of the horrible pit and miry- 
clay and set their feet upon an everlasting rock ? He 
said to the paralytic in Capernaum, " Son, thy sins are 
forgiven ; " and he has been loosing paralytics from 
their infirmity and forgiving their sins from then 
until now. He said to the sinful woman who 
anointed his feet with oil of spikenard, " Daughter, 
go in peace ; thy sins are forgiven ; " and through all 
the centuries he has been saving magdalenes and 
restoring them to self-respect and to divine peace. 
He said to the dying thief on Golgotha, " To-day 
thou shalt be with me in paradise ; " and there are 
multitudes of malefactors as guilty as poor Dysmas, 
who are prepared to testify that just now he met 
them with the same message of pardoning grace. 

And how is it that the name of Jesus is to-day the 
most potent name in war and diplomacy ? His figure 
towers aloft in the affairs of nations like the Brocken 
of the Alps. What has become of other magnates 
who ruled the earth in centuries gone by ? 

" Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, 
May stop a hole to keep the wind away." 

But Christ is the most influential arbiter in the affairs of 
men and nations. Let Napoleon speak from his lonely 
retreat at St. Helena : " You tell of Caesars, of Alex- 
anders, of their conquests, of the enthusiasm which 
they kindle in the hearts of their soldiers ; but think 
of the conquests of this dead Man. Can you conceive 
of Caesar as the eternal Emperor of the Roman Senate 



42 The Verilies of Jesus 

and from the depth of his mausoleum governing the 
empire, watching over the destinies of Rome ? Yet 
here is an Arm that for eighteen centuries has pro- 
tected the Church from the storms which have threat- 
ened to engulf it." 

It may be that Macaulay's vision will come true, 
and at some future time a New Zealander will stand 
upon a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the 
ruins of St. Paul's. If so, however, it will be because 
the New Zealander himself will be the last consummate 
fruit of Christian culture ; a man of higher attainments 
in moral power than those who reared the fabric of 
St. Paul's. For Christ is a living and omnipotent 
force moving the world, through each succeeding sun, 
into a clearer light ; and this will continue until, in 
the restitution of all things, every knee shall bow be- 
fore him and every tongue confess in the full glory of 
his millennial reign, that he alone is King over all. 

I have been crucified with Christ. Who is this 
" I " ? It is this lower Ego or self which is crucified 
with Christ. But from the death and burial of this 
lower nature, the truer self rises into newness of life. 
" I have been crucified with Christ ; and it is no 
longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me." 

I live now as never before for the true advantage of 
self. So long as my carnal nature had the mastery, 
the story of my life was constant degeneration. But 
now that my better nature has triumphed, I enter up- 
on a process of progressive sanctification. I shall 



Life Out of Death 43 

never cease to grow in character, but will continue to 
increase from grace to grace and from glory to glory, 
ever approaching the full stature of a man. 

I live now more than ever toward others. The 
lower nature is selfish. The " old man " was given 
over to self-gratification, but the " new man " follows 
close in the footsteps of him of whom it was written : 
" He went about doing good." The influence of one 
whose sordid self has perished on the cross is an ever- 
increasing influence for good. The close of his earthly 
career does not end it. " Fear not, Brother Ridley ; 
we do light a candle in England to-day which by God's 
grace shall never be put out ! " 

And I live now more than ever towards God. The 
unregenerate man who lives after the flesh and not 
after the Spirit, is of little or no consequence in the 
kingdom of truth and righteousness. He bears to the 
household of faith the same relation that a scapegrace 
son does to any family circle. But as I come forth 
out of the death of the flesh into the life of the Spirit, I 
assume a new and vital relation toward the kingdom 
of God. He counts me now a loyal subject and con- 
descends to work through me for the casting down of 
the strongholds of wickedness and the building up of 
truth and righteousness on earth. I am living on a 
higher level and breathing a new atmosphere ; as one 
who stands upon the summit of a mountain looking 
down on those who plod along the lower paths ; what 
mites and midgets they are, who bustle to and fro in 



44 The Verilies of Jesus 

quest of things that perish with the using. Up here 
are life and immortality. I died down yonder on the 
cross to live up here with God. I buried all and have 
all. I was crucified, yet I live ; nay, Christ liveth in 
me. 



VIII. 
THE GREAT SIGN. 



" Verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this 
generation." Mark viii. 12. 



No man ever made such extraordinary claims as 
this Jesus of Nazareth. Who was he ? A man of 
the people who had received his education in a carpen- 
ter shop ; yet he put himself forward as an infallible 
teacher in spiritual things. He touched the great prob- 
lems of eternity with a fearless hand, and he taught 
as one having authority. The common people followed 
him in multitudes and heard him gladly. The scribes 
and Pharisees who were the accredited theologians of 
the time, looked on with amazement and envy. They 
inquired of him, " Whence is thine authority ? " He 
answered, " From heaven." " Then give us a sign 
from heaven," said they, " to verify it." 

He had wrought miracles among them. I do not 
say he claimed to work miracles, because his miracles 
were at that time undisputed facts. There were 
present in the popular assemblages those whose eyes 

45 



46 The Verilies of Jesus 

had been opened, whose leprous scales had been wiped 
away, whose palsied limbs had been restored by his 
power. In the presence of such witnesses there was 
no room for denial or doubt. The only question was, 
Whence did Jesus derive this power to work mir- 
acles ? Was it from above or from beneath ? The 
scribes and Pharisees intimated that it was from Satan. 
" No," said Jesus, " it is divine power. I can do noth- 
ing except the Father be with me. I and my Father 
are one." Then said the scribes and Pharisees, " Let 
us see your credentials. If this power be from heaven, 
show us a sign from heaven to attest it." But Jesus 
refused. He could say " No " on occasion, and there 
was special reasons why he should here refuse to give 
a sign. 

There was one sign, however, which Jesus said these 
cavilers should have, to wit : The sign of the prophet 
Jonah. This was a sign, indeed, not from heaven, but 
from earth, from the darkness of the tomb, from the 
belly of hell. How runs the record ? " The word of 
Jehovah came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 
Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against 
it ; for their wickedness has come up before me. But 
Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence 
of Jehovah, and he went down to Joppa, and found a 
ship going to Tarshish ; so he paid the fare thereof, 
and went down unto it, to go with them unto Tarshish 
from the presence of Jehovah. But Jehovah sent 
out a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty 



The Great Sign 4.7 

tempest on the sea, so that the ship was like to be 
broken. Then they took up Jonah, and cast him forth 
into the sea ; and the sea ceased from its raging. And 
Jehovah prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah ; 
and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and 
three nights. Then Jonah prayed unto Jehovah his 
God out of the fish's belly. And Jehovah spake unto 
the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. 
And the word of Jehovah came unto Jonah the second 
time, saying Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and 
preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So 
Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh. And he began 
to enter into the city a day's journey, and cried, Yet 
forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown ! And the 
people of Nineveh believed God ; and they proclaimed 
a fast. And God saw their works, that they turned 
from their evil way ; and God repented of the evil 
which he said he would do unto them ; and he did it 
not." (Jonah i. 1-4, 15, 17; ii. 1, 10; iii. 1-3, 5, 10.) 

Now this is the sign which Jesus gave to those who 
refused to believe in him. A sign is something that 
signifies. What is the significance of the sign of the 
prophet Jonas ? In other words, What did our Lord 
mean by it ? 

I. It was a vindication of the truth of prophecy. 
Our Lord said to his companions on his way to the 
village of Emmaus as he opened their understanding 
in the Scriptures, " Thus it is written, that the Christ 
should suffer, and rise again from the dead." 



48 The Verilies of Jesus 

It is the fashion in these days to make light of the 
story of Jonah. It is sometimes spoken of as a fable. 
Let it be understood, however, first, that the Jews 
did not so regard it. To them it was a record of an 
historical event. It was never called in question 
among those who accepted the Scriptures as the word 
of God. Second, the early Christians believed it. 
We find conclusive evidence of this in the fact that 
rude pictures of Jonah and the great fish are to be 
found on many of the graves in the catacombs. Here 
the early Christians laid away their dead and professed 
their faith in a final resurrection by the sign of the 
prophet Jonas. As the sea monster vomited forth the 
prophet, so should the grave give up the sleeping dust 
of their beloved to newness of life and immortality. 
And third, Christ believed it. To the Jews demand- 
ing a sign, he said : " Verily I say unto you, There 
shall no sign be given unto this generation " (Mark viii. 
12), which, in another place is thus qualified, "An evil 
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; and 
there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of 
Jonah." (Matt. xvi. 4.) He thus made this truth the 
guarantee of his own triumph over death. Had he 
regarded it as mere folk-lore, he could not have made 
such use of it. We do not use fables as guarantees of 
fact. Try it in a court of justice on this wise, " As 
surely as Jason sought and found the Golden Fleece, 
so surely will I tell the truth." But that would 
scarcely answer. You must certify by an indubitable 



The Great Sign 49 

fact like this : As surely as there is a God in heaven 
I will tell the truth. Or try it in a common matter 
like the contract for a debt ; make out your note on 
this wise : " By the sign of Jack and the Beanstalk, or 
of Cinderella and her Crystal Slipper, I promise to 
pay when this obligation falls due." Does this seem 
preposterous ? It is not a whit more so than to allege 
that Jesus referred to the fable of Jonah when he was 
called upon to produce a sign in verification of his own 
claims as the only begotten Son of God. 

II. The sign of the prophet Jonas was designed to 
verify and emphasize the Messiahship of Christ. The 
antitype of Jonah and the great fish was the resurrec- 
tion of Christ. This is the one pre-eminent miracle 
by which he verifies his claim. Thus Paul writes to 
the Romans : " He was declared to be the Son of God 
with power by the resurrection from the dead." This 
event proved his Messiahship with all that was involved 
in it. 

It is a mighty claim, this claim that Jesus is the 
very Son of God. It covers his relations with his 
people every way. 

And he vindicates this claim by his resurrection 
from the dead. Who is the mightiest of earth ? The 
king of terrors. Is there any to dispute his power ? 
Nay, there is no power like that of death. Can the 
power of wealth equal it ? Croesus is reduced to 
dust. The power of glory ? Or of armies and navies ? 
The shores of all the oceans are littered with wrecked 

D 



50 The Verilies of Jesus 

fleets, and the hillsides are strewn with the dust of 
panoplied hosts. Who then shall dispute with death ? 
On the pale horse, scythe in hand, he always has the 
right of way. At the door of the cemetery he laughs, 
and cries, " I gather them in ! I gather them in ! " 
" My kingdom for an inch of time ! " cries Queen 
Elizabeth. Fold her hands, cover her eyes ; death is 
too strong for her. " Fie ! fie ! " said Cardinal Beau- 
fort, when they told him he had but a moment to live ; 
" wherefore shall death have me ? Are my treasuries 
empty ? Go bribe him ! " Fold his hands and carry 
him out ; death has conquered. Death always 
conquers. 

Always ? Nay, not in Joseph's garden. Here 
Christ meets the king of terrors and vanquishes him 
— vanquishes him in behalf of all the children of men. 
In the darkness of this sepulchre, the bands and nap- 
kin, that never yet had been resisted, were as green 
withes in the grip of this Samson, who rent them and 
came forth wiping the death dew from his face, say- 
ing, " O death, where is thy sting ? O death, where 
is thy victory ? " And into the fellowship of this 
triumph he invites his people, following with them 
always after the bier and standing beside the open 
graves of their beloved, saying, " I am the resurrection 
and the life ; he that believeth on me, though he die, 
yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth 
on me shall never die." 

III. The sign of the prophet Jonas gives us a defi- 



The Great Sign 5 1 



nite assurance of life and immortality. It is written, 
" Life and immortality are brought to light through 
the Gospel." The world had always dreamed of 
immortality ; had guessed and wondered and hoped. 
Now, however, the mists of doubt are lifted, the 
dream becomes a reality, the peradventure gives way 
to the " Yea " and " Amen " of the risen Son of God. 
" Now has Christ been raised from the dead, the first 
fruits of them that are asleep." And, " Behold, I tell 
you a mystery : We all shall not sleep, but we shall 
all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an 
eye, at the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, 
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. Then shall 
come to pass the saying that is written, Death is 
swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting ? 
O death, where is thy victory ? The sting of death is 
sin ; and the power of sin is the law ; but thanks be 
to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord 
Jesus Christ." (i Cor. xv. 20, 51, 52, 54-57.) 



IX. 

OPTIMISM. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but 
the world shall rejoice : ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shalt 
be turned into joy. John xvi. 20. 

The disciples were slow to perceive the necessity 
of the death of Jesus as a factor in his plan of 
the Kingdom : so slow that he found it impossible to 
convey the great truth to them except in bare hints 
and suggestions. "They were not able to bear it." 
Even after his crucifixion they failed to apprehend it ; so 
that he was moved to say to those who accompanied him 
to Emmaus, " O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe 
in all that the prophets have spoken ! Behooved it 
not the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into 
his glory ? " (Luke xxiv. 25.) 

The Verily before us was spoken in the upper room 
on the night before his crucifixion and was intended 
to fortify them against their approaching bereave- 
ment. It is the Verily of good cheer. " A little 
while," he said, " and ye behold me not ; and again a 
little while, and ye shall see me," and, " Because I go 

52 



Optimism 53 

unto the Father." They could not understand. Per- 
plexed and bewildered, they said among themselves, 
" What is this that he saith, ' A little while and ye 
behold me not ; and again a little while and ye shall 
see me : ' and, < Because I go unto the Father ? ' We 
know not what he saith." Then, as far as possible, 
he explained, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye 
shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice : 
ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned 
into joy T (John xvi. 20.) 

(1) " The world shall rejoice." The death of Jesus 
was an occasion of rejoicing to all concerned in it. 
Pilate was glad to have the matter off his hands. 
The rabbis of the Sanhedrin heard the cry, " It is 
finished ! " and congratulated themselves that the Naz- 
arene, who had troubled them so long, would trouble 
them no more. The people who had lent themselves 
to the tragedy rejoiced because, as they supposed, the 
fearless preacher of righteousness was finally disposed 
of. 

We find a parallel to this in the felicitations which 
are heard among the enemies of Christ whenever his 
cause meets with an apparent set-back. The world 
rejoices over every repulse of Christianity. Witness 
the observations made in the secular newspapers at 
the time of massacre of the Chinese missionaries. On 
every hand we were reminded of the fatuous folly of 
wasting precious life and treasure in an effort to 
evangelize the heathen. Witness, also, the comments 



54 The Verilies of Jesus 

made on the alleged triumphs of liberalism over the 
plain teachings of Jesus as to doctrine and ethics. 
The church stands practically alone in its support of 
temperance, Sabbath observance, and the sanctity of the 
marriage relation and other safeguards of social and 
domestic life. The world cries " Aha ! " at every de- 
feat or rebuff in the campaign for the propagation of 
Christian truth. 

(2) " And ye shall be sorrowful." How immeasur- 
able was the grief of the disciples over the death of 
their Master ! They saw no bright light in the cloud. 
Their dream of Messianic glory was over ; their fondly 
cherished hopes had come to naught. "I go a fish- 
ing," said Peter. " We also go with you," said his 
companions. Why not ? What further use of preach- 
ing and proselyting ? Jesus was dead. 

The same sort of pessimism is common in these 
days. Not a few Christians are of the opinion that 
everything is going to the bad. Look at the preva- 
lent forms of social and civil corruption ! Look at 
the meager results of missionary effort ! Look at the 
heresies and imperfections of the church ! Look at 
the spiritual apathy of believers ! Are we not hasten- 
ing on to some frightful cataclysm ? Is not the church 
speeding to a doom like that of the Alexandrian craft 
in Adria, from which only a few choice souls shall 
escape " on planks and broken pieces of the ship ? " 
Not so. " O fools and slow of heart to believe ! " 
God is not dead nor has he forgotten. 



Op 



timism 5 5 



(3) " Your sorrow shall be turned into joy." Three 
days the Lord lay in his sepulchre and then what re- 
joicing ! What running to and fro ! What eager 
salutations, "The Lord is risen indeed!" At the 
doorway of the sepulchre stood Mary, with the great 
sorrow still upon her and unconvinced by the empti- 
ness of the tomb. " They have taken away my Lord 
and I know not where they have laid him." One 
word will set the music ringing in her soul, " Mary !" 
So may the living Christ, calling us by name, dispel 
our doubts and revive within us the hope that maketh 
not ashamed. 

For there is no ground for pessimism among those 
who truly believe in Christ. Weeping may endure for 
the night, but joy cometh in the morning. The Captain 
of our salvation loses no battles. His plans never 
miscarry, and his prophecies never fail. 

" Take heart, the Master builds again 1 
A charmed life old Goodness hath : 
The tares may perish, but the grain 
Is not for death. 

God works in all things : all obey 
His first propulsion from the night. 
Wake then and watch ; 
The world is gray with morning light 1" 

The hands on God's dial never move backward. Every 
time the world rolls around it rolls a little further into 
the light. What we need is faith, more faith in God 
and in the ultimate and universal triumph of the gospel 
of his Son. 



56 The Verilies of Jesus 

The prophet Elisha was sojourning with a theological 
student in Dothan when the Syrians came by night 
and encompassed the town. The student arose in 
the early morning and, taking in the situation at a 
glance, ran to Elisha wringing his hands and crying, 
" Alas, my master ! how shall we do ? " It was evi- 
dent that things had come to the worst possible pass ; 
but Elisha had experience with God. He saw the 
camp of the enemy but he saw more : and he prayed, 
" Lord, open the eyes of this young man that he may 
see ! " And straightway the eyes of the youth were 
opened ; and he saw : and, " behold, the mountain was 
full of horses and charipts of fire ! " We live in a lit- 
tle world, circumscribed by our finger-tips ; and we 
are blind to the vast domain in which God works for 
us. Oh, for open eyes to behold his horses and 
chariots ! The worst rebuff that we can meet with 
in our service of Christ is but for a little while. Our 
Lord never lies in his sepulchre more than three days. 
On the morning of the third day we see him again. His 
kingdom is secure. " His purposes will ripen fast." 
Opposition is in vain. The kings of the earth set 
themselves and the rulers take counsel together against 
him : he that sitteth in heaven shall laugh ! Take 
heart, O believer ! Despondency is without reason, 
and doubt dishonors God. 



X. 

PRIVILEGE AND RESPONSIBILITY. 

Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there 
hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist : yet he that is but 
little in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Matt. xi. n. 

Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of 
Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city. 

Matt. x. 15. 
Verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men de- 
sired to see the things which ye see, and saw them not ; and to hear 
the things which ye hear, and heard them not. Matt. xiii. 17. 

Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into 
the kindom of God before you. Matt. xxi. 31. 

I. 

The Least in the Kingdom. 

John the Baptist was a belated son of the Old Econ- 
omy. He did not himself belong to the kingdom of 
gospel privilege, but held open the door that multitudes 
might enter into it. The Master said, " What went 
ye out into the wilderness to behold ? a reed shaken 
with the wind ? But what went ye out to see ? a man 
clothed in soft raiment ? Behold, they that wear 
soft raiment are in kings' houses, But wherefore 

57 



58 The Verilies of Jesus 

went ye out ? to see a prophet ? Yea, I say unto yoa, 
and much more than a prophet. Verily, I say vmto 
you, Among them that are born of women, there hath 
not arisen a greater than John the Baptist : yet he that 
is but little in the kingdom of heaven is greater than 
her (Matt. xi. 7-9, 1 1.) 

But what is this kingdom ? It is variously called 
"the kingdom of God," "the kingdom of heaven," 
"the kingdom of Christ." It is important that we 
should understand the Kingdom ; for here is the key 
of the Scriptures. It means the reign of Jehovah, be- 
ginning in the individual soul and extending itself into 
the home-life, the neighborhood and the nation, com- 
pleting the universal symphony of worship of the living 
God. 

(1) It has its beginning in the individual soul; as 
Jesus said, " The kingdom of heaven is within you." 
And again, " Verily, verily I say unto you, except one 
be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 
And except one be born of water and the Spirit," that 
is, of purifying and quickening energy, "he cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God." 

(2) It finds its outward manifestation in the visible 
Church. The Church indeed is not what it ought to 
be, for the wheat and tares must grow together until 
the harvesting and winnowing of the great day. Let 
this be remembered, however, that the Church, as it 
exists, is a divine institution, and through this living 
organism God is working for the deliverance of the 



Privilege and Responsibility 59 

world. It represents the accumulated sum and sub- 
stance of evangelizing effort on earth ; and if so, all 
who are in sympathy with its supreme purpose, should 
be associated with it. 

(3) It finds its ultimate consummation in the mil- 
lenial glory of Christ. This is the fifth monarchy of 
Daniel. He saw the great image : head of gold, breast 
of silver, thighs of brass, legs of iron and feet of clay, 
representing the successive powers of Babylonia, Medo- 
Persia, Greece and Rome. And then a stone hewn 
out of the mountain rolled toward it and smote the 
great image and ground it to powder, which was swept 
away as chaff is blown from the threshing-floor. And, 
lo, the stone hewn out of the mountain increased until 
it became itself a mountain which filled the whole 
earth. This is the ultimate kingdom. The largest 
prayer that any Christian can offer is, " Thy kingdom 
come." The supreme duty of every Christian is set 
forth in these words, " Seek ye first his kingdom." 
When this prayer shall rise from the earnest hearts of 
all believers, and this duty shall be univerally dis- 
charged, the vision of St. John the evangelist will be 
fulfilled : " I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming 
down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride 
adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice 
out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of 
God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and 
they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be 
their God." (Rev. xxi. 2-3.) 



60 The Verilies of Jesus 

II. 

The Men of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

I can remember the call of the court crier from the 
steps of the old court-house, " Oyez ! oyez ! " in the 
frontier village long ago, and they could be seen com- 
ing from tavern and along the streets, juror, litigants, 
lawyers, and hangers-on, all to attend the court. So 
shall the trumpet sound and the dead shall arise ; from 
the sea, from the land, they shall come to the great 
assize. All will be there : souls slain in battle, the 
slaughtered innocents, popes and victims of the Inquisi- 
tion, the poor wretch who was dragged out of the river 
yesterday, the millionaire who died with his hand 
clutching his wealth wrung from widows and orphans, 
formal professors, the cultured infidels of Christendom, 
the multitudes who died in the darkness of barbarism, 
the men of Nineveh and the men of New York, all 
will be there. Oh, the sea of faces ! 

The judgment is a necessary factor in the moral 
economy of the universe. There is but a faint show 
of justice in the present administration of affairs — all 
things awry, at odds and ends. The poor are cast down 
and the wicked exalted. Rewards go where penalties 
should fall, and vice versa. Can we suppose this to 
be the end ? Everywhere else in the universe, save 
in the moral province, there is a perfect equilibrium ; 
the sun draws no more water from the sea than the 
lakes can receive and the rivers carry back again to 



Privilege and Responsibility 61 

the sea. If the pressure of the atmosphere were a 
trifle more or less the earth would fall into fragments. 
A little less heat and the earth would be frozen ; a 
little more and it would be burned up. A little more 
electricity in the air and our system would be a maga- 
zine of destructive forces. But everything in the 
physical world is just right. Must we not believe 
that there is to be a final adjustment in the province 
of moral things ? Ay ; the heavens shall be rolled 
back and yonder will sit the Judge upon his throne. 
In his hand a great book, and the book shall be opened. 
The ledger ! Then will come the evening-up, to every 
one his due. 

The judgment will be administered in absolute 
equity. Here we misunderstand each other ; we judge 
by the sight of our eyes. 

" Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 
Decidedly can try us ; 
He knows each chord— its various tone, 
Each spring— its various bias." 

All things will enter into the consideration : our nature, 
temperament, heredity, environment, training, tempta- 
tion ; nothing will be forgotten then. And as no false 
sentence will be possible, so there can be no complaint 
or plea for a new trial. Those to whom the Judge 
shall say, " Depart ! " will unite with those to whom 
he says, " Come, ye blessed ! " in ascribing to him an 
absolute fairness. " The judgments of the Lord are 
true and righteous altogether." Then we shall under- 



62 The Verilies of Jesus 

stand the strange providences that so puzzle us now. 
We shall see the divine goodness above all. As 
Whit tier sings, 

" God's ways seem dark, but soon or late 
They touch the shining hills of day." 

An important factor in the ultimate decisions of the 
Great Day will be the measure of our light. We are 
moved to ask, " What is to become of the heathen ? 
Are they to be cast into hell for not accepting the 
gospel which they never heard ? Oh, no. They shall 
be responsible only for their measure of light and shall 
be punished only for not living up to it ; as it is written, 
" To whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be 
required." 

I see a group of rabbis drawing near wearing their 
broad phylacteries and frontlets on which is written, 
" Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord ! " and 
saying to the Judge, " What hast thou for us ? " And 
while they wait the penitent thief draws near, saying, 
" I saw the Redeemer but once, and my heart was 
smitten. I repented and believed in him." And to 
this man the Judge shall say, " Enter into the king- 
dom of thy Lord." 

I see a procession of vestal virgins drawing near, 
who say, " We kept the sacred fires alive ; we illumi- 
nated missals and breviaries ; we sang the matins and 
vespers. What hast thou for us ? " And yonder the 
Magdalene draws near with downcast face, saying, " I 
heard thee as thou wast preaching in the streets, say- 



Privilege and Responsibility 63 

ing, ' Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest ; ' and with my burden 
of sin and shame upon me I came and anointed thy 
feet." And at her word the room seems filled with 
the odor of the precious nard and the Judge says, 
" Enter into the joy of thy Lord." 

An army of Crusaders draws near. They bear the 
scars of service ; they say, " We fought for the rescue 
of the Holy Sepulchre and made battle beneath the 
walls of Acre. What hast thou for us?" A little 
lad draws near, modestly saying, " I had the basket 
of loaves and fishes, and when thy disciples said, 
* Give it for the hunger of the multitude,' I freely 
gave it." And the Judge bids him also " Enter into 
the joy of thy Lord." 

Here are a multitude of nominal Christians, their 
names on the church-roll as members in good and regular 
standing, and they say, " Lord, we lived in the shadow 
of the sanctuary, sat at the sacramental table, said 
our prayers and paid our tithes with strict regularity. 
What hast thou for us ? " And, lo, here come the 
men of Nineveh : " We heard thy prophet once ; we 
heard his warning of approaching danger ; we believed 
that to the penitent thou wouldst be merciful ; we 
bowed ourselves in sorrow before thee and besought 
thy pardon." And to these the Judge says, " Enter 
into the joy of thy Lord." 

And what of Sodom and Gomorrah ? Verily, I say 
unto you, it shall be more tolerable for them than for the 



64 The Verilies of Jesus 

cities that receive you not. (Matt. x. 15.) They shall 
be " beaten with few stripes ; " that is, they are to be 
punished but not beyond the measure of their light. 
The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous 
altogether. He takes all things into consideration 
and decides accordingly. The Jews will be judged by 
their oracles, the people of Christendom by the Gospel, 
the men of Sodom and pagans generally by " the law 
written in their hearts." (Romans i. 18-23 ; also ii. 

I3-IS-) 

Oh, the surprises of that day ! There will be many 

passing through heaven's gate who were lit along the 
way by a single rushlight, and there will be many 
who, despite an unspeakable wealth of privilege, shall 
be shut out for ever. Do we ask, " What is to become 
of the heathen ? " A far more pertinent question is 
this : " What is to become of you and me ? " It is 
greatly to be feared that Zulus, Bechuanas and Hot- 
tentots will point their fingers at some of us in that 
day. We were ushered into the world with prayer. 
We were soothed to sleep with sacred melodies. We 
were brought to the sanctuary to receive the waters 
of holy baptism. We were taught to say, " Our 
Father which art in heaven ; " to read our Bibles ; to 
revere our confessions of faith. The sound of the 
church bell has ever been in our ears. We have 
lived under the shadow of the Christ, yet some of us 
have never accepted Christ, preferring to bear the 
burden of our own sin. What is to become of us ? 



Privilege and Responsibility 65 
III. 

Longing to See and Hear. 

It was a great privilege to be associated with Jesus 
in his earthly ministry. He said to his followers, 
" Blessed are your eyes, for they see ; and your ears, 
for they hear." They saw his miracles ; they heard 
him speak as never man spake concerning the great 
verities. Well might he say, " Verily, many prophets 
and righteous men desired to see the things which ye 
see and saw them not, and to hear the things which ye 
hear and heard them not." Nevertheless our privilege 
is greater than theirs. He frankly said to them, " It 
is expedient that I go away." Their fellowship with 
him had its limitations. It is better to be on terms 
of spiritual communion with Jesus than to know him 
after the flesh. His presence is just as real with us 
as it was in those days and far more helpful. Our 
familiarity with him is just as intimate and far more 
reverent. His offices of love are just as gracious and 
broadened by the measure of reclaimed glory. 

" We may not climb the heavenly steeps 
To bring the Lord Christ down ; 
We may not search the lowest deeps, 
For him no depths can drown ; 
But warm, sweet, tender, even yet 
A present help is he ; 
For love has still its Olivet, 
And faith its Galilee." 



66 The Verilies of Jesus 

IV. 

The Two Sons. 

The religious leaders of the Jews challenged the au- 
thority of Jesus as a teacher of religious truth. He 
answered them in a parable, which was like a mirror 
held up to expose their hypocrisy : " A man had two 
sons ; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go 
work to-day in the vineyard. And he answered and 
said, I will not : but afterward he repented himself 
and went. And he came to the second, and said like- 
wise. And he answered and said, I go, sir : and went 
not. Which of the two did the will of his father ? 
They say, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily 
I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go 
into the kingdom of God before you. For John came 
unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed 
him not ; but the publicans and harlots believed him : 
and ye, when ye saw it, did not even repent yourselves 
afterward, that ye might believe him." (Matt. xxi. 
28-32.) 

The sinner who repents is forgiven ; but the self-right- 
eous man who falsely professes to be living a righteous 
life, is shut out of the kingdom. This is not to say 
that a profession is vain. On the contrary it is ex- 
pected of every true believer that he will keep his 
windows open toward Jerusalem. " So let your light 
shine before men that they may see your good works 
and glorify your Father." But a false profession is but 



Privilege and Responsibility 67 

sin upon sin. Fringes and phylacteries are bad only 
when they are superficial and meaningless. The fig- 
tree was cursed not because it bore leaves but because 
its leaves deceived the passing traveler with a false 
promise of fruit. A place on the church roster, a seat 
at the sacramental table, a Christian birthright and " a 
name to live " are thrice blessed when they serve as 
outward tokens of an inward grace ; otherwise they 
provoke the just anger of God. He who welcomes 
the penitent publican and harlot disowns the self-right- 
eous Pharisee. Wherefore let us " bring up the bot- 
tom of our life to the top of our light," if we would 
have an abundant entrance into the kingdom of God. 



XI. 

REWARDS. 

Verily I say unto you, that ye who have followed me, in the re- 
generation when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, 
ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of 
Israel. Matt. xix. 28. 

Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or 
wife, or brethren, or parents, or children, for the kingdom of God's 
sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this time, and in the 
world to come eternal life. Luke xviii. 29-30. 

Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward. 

Matt. vi. 2, 5, 16. 

Verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward. 

Matt. x. 42. 

Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached 
throughout the whole world, that also which this woman hath done 
shall be spoken of for a memorial of her. Mark xiv. 9. 

Verily I say unto you, that he will set him over all that he hath. 

Matt. xxiv. 47. 

At the outset, when the followers of Christ were a 
feeble folk like the conies and when confession of 
their faith meant loss and suffering, it was manifestly 
important that they should receive all possible stimu- 
lation and encouragement. It was for this reason no 

68 



Rewards 69 

doubt that Jesus had so much to say, and with such 
emphasis, concerning the rewards of faithful service. 

On Thrones of Power. 

At the close of Christ's interview with the young 
ruler, who failed when the test of self-renunciation was 
applied, Peter said, " Lo ! we have left all and followed 
thee ; what then shall we have ? " It was a worldly 
but very natural expression ; and the Lord, consider- 
ate of weakness, made a wonderful answer : " Verily 
I say unto you, that ye who have followed me, in the 
regeneration (i. e. the Messianic Kingdom begun at 
Pentecost and having its consummation in the millenial 
reign), when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of 
his glory, ye shall also sit upon twelve thrones, judging 
the twelve tribes of Israel!' (Matt. xix. 28.) Whether 
this great promise is to be literally fulfilled is an open 
question ; though I see no reason why the apostles 
of Christ should not be thus promoted to positions of 
authority. In any case, however, the promise has 
been already fulfilled in the ever-increasing influence 
of these apostles during the progress of the centuries. 
Their power has eclipsed that of the Caesars ; their 
authority has survived that of the rabbis of Jewry. 
Their cause has triumphed and their word is with power 
among the whole Israel of God. 

An Hundred Fold. 
The promise given to the Twelve that they should sit 



70 The Verilies of Jesus 

on thrones of power in the kingdom of Christ, was im- 
mediately extended, in other form, to all his disciples 
then and thereafter : " Verily I say unto you, There is 
no man that hath left house, or wife, or brethren, or 
parents, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, 
who shall not receive manifold more (an hundred fold. 
Matt.) in this time, and in the world to come eternal 
life. " (Luke xviii. 29.) The time was coming when 
believers were to be required, for the truth's sake, to 
suffer the loss of earthly possessions and the sunder- 
ing of earth's dearest ties ; and in their adversity this 
promise was destined to be like a girdle about their 
loins. 

"An hundred fold in this present time ! " Here is 
something better than gold-bearing bonds. Saul of 
Tarsus proved the truth of it. His conversion to 
Christ meant the giving up of home, professional out- 
look, friends, prosperity, ecclesiastical standing, every- 
thing ; yet when writing to Timothy, after years had 
passed, he said, " Godliness is profitable for all things, 
having promise of the life which now is, and of that 
which is to come." (1 Tim. iv. 8.) 

" And in the time to come eternal life." Who 
shall estimate this ? Who can tell the treasures in this 
casket ? " Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither 
have entered into the heart of man the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love him." * 

* The quotations of Scripture in this book are, with this exception 
from the American Revision. In this instance, however, the Ameri- 



Rewards 7 1 

" They have Their Reward!' 

In the enunciation of the principles of his kingdom 
our Lord had this to say about almsgiving, as a 
particular form of righteousness : " Take heed that 
ye do not your righteousness before men, to be seen 
of them : else ye have no reward with your Father 
who is in heaven. When therefore thou doest alms, 
sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do 
in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may 
have glory of men. Verily, I say unto you y They 
have received reward." (Matt. vi. I, 2.) The em- 
phasis of the Verily is on the word "have" or "have re- 
ceived." The hypocrites (literally, mask-wearers), 
who cast their coins into the trumpet-mouths of 
chests in the temple treasury so conspicuously as 
attract attention, have their reward here and now in 
the praise of men. The Greek word apekousi indi- 
cates a receipt in full. 

A like statement is made as to prayer : " And 
when ye pray, ye shalt not be as the hypocrites : for 
they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in 
the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of 
men. Verily I say unto you, They have received 
their reward!' (Matt. vi. 5.) They get their wages, 
what they have earned, here and now, in a reputation 

can rendering is so unnecessarily awkward that I decline to follow it. 
It runs on this wise: " Things which eye saw not and ears hear not 
and which entered not into the heart of man, whatsoever things God 
prepared for them that love him." 



72 The Verilies of Jesus 

for piety. They were not to look for an answer to their 
prayers, since this was not what was uppermost in 
their minds. They prayed in order that they might 
be seen of men ; and men saw them and said, " Behold 
their devotion ! " What more could they ask ? " They 
have received their reward," in self-complacency and 
spiritual pride. The account is closed. 

So, also, as to fasting : " Moreover when ye fast, 
be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance : for 
they disfigure their faces, that they may be seen of 
men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have re- 
ceived their reward." (Matt. vi. 16.) It was the cus- 
tom, with those who desired a reputation for singular 
piety, to forego their usual ablutions and hair-dressing, 
to wear sack-cloth and put ashes on their faces, so 
that they might " be seen of men to fast." And for 
this they secured a present recompense in the applause 
of spectators, who said, " Behold, the piety of these 
men ! " But God, who looketh on the heart, saw no 
merit in it. A true fast is sincere sorrow for sin and 
abstinence from it. 



" Is this a fast — to keep 
The larder lean, 
And clean 
From fat of veals and sheep ? 

" Is it to quit the dish 
Of flesh, yet still 
To fill 
The platter high with fish ? 



Rewards 73 



" Is it to fast an hour, 
Or ragged to go, 
Or show 
A downcast look, and sour ? 

" No ! ' tis a fast to dole 
Thy sheaf of wheat, 
And meat, 
Unto the hungry soul. 

" It is to fast from strife, 
From old debate 
And hate, — 
To circumcise thy life ; 

" To show a heart grief-rent ; 
To starve thy sin, 
Not bin ; — 
And that's to keep thy Lent." 

They shall not lose their Reward. 

In speaking of the treatment accorded to his dis- 
ciples our Lord was pleased to identify his interests 
with theirs, saying " He that receiveth you, receiveth 
me." His tender interest in their welfare is manifest 
in the Verily that followed : "And whosoever shall 
give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold 
water only, in the name of a disciple, Verily I say unto 
you, he shall in no wise lose his rezvard." (Matt. x. 42.) 
Observe the endearing term " these little ones." He 
is speaking not only of the twelve apostles but of the 
humblest of his followers. And observe the small 
kindness, " a cup of cold water." Observe, also, that 
the kindness referred to is ministered to a disciple " in 



74 The Verities of Jesus 

the name of a disciple ; " and the reward, which shall 
certainly be won, is the commendation of the Master, 
" Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, 
even these least, ye have done it unto me." 

The Ointment of Spikenard. 

Our Lord and his disciples were being entertained 
in the house of one Simon, who appears to have been 
healed of leprosy and took this method of showing his 
gratitude. While they sat at supper Mary, the sister 
of Lazarus, came with an alabaster box of spikenard 
and anointed his head. There were some in the com- 
pany who murmured against the " waste " ; whereupon 
Jesus said, " Let her alone ; why trouble ye her ? she 
hath wrought a good work on me. And verily I say 
unto you, Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached 
throughout the whole world, that also which this 
woman hath done shall be spoken of for a tnemoi'ial of 
her." (Mark xiv. 9.) 

We hear a great deal about "good works," and it 
is important that we should know what a good work 
is. Here is our Lord's definition ; the anointing of 
his head was declared to be a good work, and it was 
particularly so because it was wrought on him. Any- 
thing done for Christ's sake is acceptable to God. 

And its reward is sure. The good work of Mary 
has been published throughout the ever-increasing 
realms of Christendom for nineteen centuries. It is a 
memorial to her love. The true token of love is per- 



Rewards 7 5 

sonal ministry. The estimated value of the ointment 
in this case was about fifty dollars ; but her deed was 
appraised in the words " She hath done what she 
could." This is the highest praise, since angels could 
do no more. The ministry of Christian love is like 
ointment in the hand " which bewrayeth itself." God 
and men take knowledge of it. 

" Oh may we thus, like loving Mary, 
Ever our choicest offerings bring, 
Nor grudging of our toil, nor chary 
Of costly service to our Kingl 

" What though the scornful world, deriding 

Such waste of love, of service, fears? 
Still let me pour, through taunt and chiding, 
The rich libation of my tears. 

" I bring my box of alabaster ; 

Accepted let the offering rise ! 
So grateful tears shall flow the faster, 
In founts of gladness from mine eyes I" 

Ruler Over All His Goods. 

Watch ! Watch ! " Let the door be on the latch in 
your home, for it may be in the morning he will come." 

In many ways Jesus enjoined on his disciples the 
need of watchfulness in view of his coming to judg- 
ment. Here the Parable of the Householder is used 
to enforce it : " Who then is the faithful and wise serv- 
ant, whom his lord hath set over his household, to 
give them their food in due season ? Blessed is that 
servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so 



j 6 The Verilies of Jesus 

doing. Verily, I say unto you, that he will set him 
over all that he hath." (Matt. xxiv. 47.) That is, pro- 
motion is the reward of faithfulness. " To him that 
hath shall be given." A true Christian loves the priv- 
ilege of service, and no compensation for service can, 
to his mind, exceed the hope of being permitted to 
serve in greater measure and in larger ways. 



XII. 

PUNISHMENT. 

Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Matt. xxv. 12. 

Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, 
till thou have paid the last farthing. Matt. v. 26. 

The natural heart would fain believe that jn the 
land that lies beyond the river of death all the im- 
mortals are permitted to wander in green pastures and 
pluck the fruits of the same tree of life ; but, aside 
from revelation, there is that within the soul which 
denies the possibility of this. We know full well, 
even if God had never told us, that between the holy 
and unholy in that other world, there must be an im- 
passable gulf. For what fellowship is there between 
light and darkness ? 

You may cherish only the kindest feelings toward 
the poor drunkard who knocks at your door and begs 
for shelter ; but you do not invite him, ragged and 
filthy, to make himself at home in your family circle. 
Thus it is with sinners in the life hereafter ; they can- 
not be received into the company of the sons and 
daughters of God. As they were here, so they shall 

77 



j 8 The Verilies of Jesus 

be there ; as it is written, " He that is filthy let him 
be filthy still." How then can they dwell with those 
who have washed their robes and made them white in 
the blood of the Lamb ? They must depart to their 
" own place ; " and that place becomes hell not by 
reason of its being a bottomless pit or a furnace of fire, 
or a region of outer darkness, but because its inhabit- 
ants are all alike polluted with the indelible stain of 
sin. " Without are dogs, and the sorcerers, and the 
fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolators, and 
every one that loveth and maketh a lie." Here is the 
penal colony where all earth's guilty and wretched are 
brought together and forced to endure each other's 
companionship. 

If the fairest star in the heavens were set apart to 
be the dwelling of these guilty souls, and if the richest 
gift of mind and nature were poured upon them in 
eternal plenty ; if no righteous man were ever to ap- 
pear among them ; if Sabbath bells and prayers were 
never heard ; if the lust of the flesh and the lust of 
the eye and the pride of life were to keep a never- 
ceasing saturnalia, with no restriction from God or 
conscience ; this society would verify and illustrate 
the Scriptural law of retribution to the uttermost. 
For there can be no real happiness without God : and 
the sentence upon those without is, " Verily I say 
unto you, I know you not!' (Matt. xxv. 12.) 

If Paris during the " reign of terror," when no re- 
straint was laid upon passion and lust, became so hor- 



Punishment 79 

rible that thieves and harlots fled from it with their 
ears stopped, as from a burning Sodom ; what must 
that place be where all the vicious characters of earth 
are brought together and given free license to revel 
as they will in an endless carnival of crime, with no 
restraint put upon them by the felt presence of God. 

Just beyond the walls of ancient Jerusalem was a 
deep gorge where all the waste and offal of the city 
were deposited. It was called the Valley of Hinnom ; 
and from this the Jews derived their name of hell — 
a place of stench and corruption. There is no pos- 
sibility there of communing with the holy and just. 
Each soul, itself polluted, is doomed to dwell forever 
in the company of polluted souls. 

Leaving out all thought of the unquenchable fire 
and the undying worm, there is an unspeakable pos- 
sibility of pain in this abandonment of the soul to it- 
self. If wicked men grow weary of the dance and 
banquet here, what weariness must oppress them 
there as the interminable aeons roll by. Pleasure 
loses its power to please. The stolen waters of sin 
grow bitter as Marah. The thirsty drink without 
quenching their thirst ; and the hungry eat of the 
fruit of lust, that seemed so tempting when it hung 
from forbidden trees, to find that now when they may 
gather it freely everywhere, it turns to ashes on their 
lips ! The wheel of Ixion rolls round and round for- 
ever ! Sisyphus drags his burden up the hill once and 
again forever ! 



80 The Verilies of Jesus 

This banishment from God is called " outer dark- 
ness." To be exiled from the presence of him who 
alone can satisfy the soul, who alone is the fountain 
of spiritual life, and without whom all is emptiness 
and vanity, who can deliver from the guilt and bond- 
age of sin and replenish the heart with joy till it 
runneth over — this, of itself, is to be bound with 
" everlasting chains." Hell could be nothing worse 
than to hear forever the voice of the Father saying, 
" / never knew you ! " 

It is a proverb among the French that " Punishment 
is the recoil of crime ; " the strength of the back-stroke 
being in the proportion to original impulse. The 
duration of punishment must therefore be as the du- 
ration of guilt. But guilt, in its very nature, is eternal ; 
it can only be removed by changing the structure of 
the soul, which cannot be done except by divine 
power in regeneration. Once guilty is always guilty ; a 
thief to-day is a thief to-morrow and forever. There 
is no expiatory virtue in suffering. 

" How then is it," you ask, " that human law exacts 
a limited penalty of the criminal and thereafter regards 
the crime as expiated ? " The answer is that human 
law does not recognize guilt as such at all ; that is, 
guilt as incurred by a violation of moral law. It pun- 
ishes only for the protection of society, and to this 
end a limited penalty may be sufficient. But God re- 
gards men not only in their relations to their fellow 
men but as individuals ; and takes cognizance of guilt 



Punishment 8 1 

as a violation of the moral law. So long as any human 
soul is stained with guilt, in this sense, so long must 
its punishment go on. 

Guilt is the incurring of a debt to justice ; " Verily, 
I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out 
thence till thou have paid the last farthing!' (Matt, 
v. 26.) Whenever that debt is canceled the soul is 
restored to the favor of God. But what shall pay it ? 
Punishment ? This has no purifying power ; it cannot 
remove guilt, and therefore it cannot stay the aveng- 
ing sword. Sin is now woven into the structure of 
the soul and " there is no remedy." 

If salvation were offered now, upon condition of 
repentance, is it conceivable that a sinful soul could 
repent in such circumstances ? There is more hope 
that a planet thrown out of the plane of its orbit and 
wheeling through space at random should return of it- 
self to its proper place in the order of the universe. 
The spirits of the lost are left to themselves. No 
rainbow spans the abyss. " Eternity," says Bridaine, 
" is a timepiece whose pendulum speaks incessantly, 
repeating two words only in the silence of the tomb : 
ever, never ; ever, never ! During these vibrations a 
soul cries out, ' What is the hour ? ' and the voice of 
another soul replies, ' Eternity ! ' " 

F 



XIII. 
INASMUCH. 

Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my 
brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me. Then shall he say also 
unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal 
fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels : for I was hungry, 
and ye did not give me to eat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink ; 
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in ; naked, and ye clothed me not ; 
sick and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also an- 
swer, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungry, or athirst, or a stranger, 
or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee ? Then 
shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye 
did it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto me. 

Matt. xxv. 40-45. 

He was a wise student of human nature who said, 
" All the world's a stage ; and all the men and women 
merely players." We cover up our faults and virtues 
alike, and thus deceive not only the audience but our- 
selves as well. 

How many mountebanks there are who palm them- 
selves off as public benefactors ; like those Pharisees 
who, devouring widows' houses, flung their coins into 
the brazen mouth of Corban, as if to say, " Behold how 
I love my fellow men ! " And, on the other hand, how 

82 



Inasmuch 83 

many philanthropists there are who, doing good sub 
rosa, are quite unconscious of it. 

It is apparent that we need a divine Verily in this 
matter. Our definitions are so false, our judgments 
so shallow, that we are in danger of missing the point 
altogether. And when our Lord speaks, it is to show 
that his thoughts are not as our thoughts. His is an 
unusual way of thinking, wherefore he must needs 
give us the Verily to emphasize it. 

Here is the picture : The followers of Jesus are 
standing before him in judgment. In the light of his 
ineffable glory they are thinking of their sins and 
shortcomings, of wasted privileges and lost opportuni- 
ties, and saying to themselves, " We have neglected 
the things we ought to have done and have done the 
things we ought not." But listen : " Come, ye blessed ! 
For I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat ; I was 
thirsty, and ye gave me drink ; I was a stranger, and 
ye took me in ; I was naked, and ye clothed me ; 
I was sick, and ye visited me ; I was in prison, and ye 
came unto me." Now mark their surprise. They 
never dreamed of such a denouement. They had 
hoped for mercy but here is more : " Enter into the 
joy of thy Lord ! " We may not guess what follows : 
for " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have 
entered into the heart of man the things which God 
hath prepared for them that love him." 

But mark their surprise : " Lord, when saw we thee 
hungry, and fed thee ? or athirst and gave thee drink ? 



84 The Verilies of Jesus 

And when saw we thee a stranger and took thee in, 
or naked and clothed thee ? Or when saw we thee sick 
and in prison and visited thee ? " And the explanation 
is so unusual, so contrary to our way of thinking, so 
amazing that we could scarcely believe were not the 
emphasis put upon it : Verily I say unto yon, Inasmuch 
as yer did it unto one of these my brethren, even these 
least, ye did it unto me!' (Matt. xxv. 40.) 

Now this means, to begin with, that the best sort of 
goodness is that which has the least alloy of self-con- 
sciousness in it. Much of the world's "charity" is 
wrought for selfish ends. Millionaires build homes for 
the poor, schools, libraries, churches, hospitals and re- 
formatories, and carve their names over the doorways. 
Philanthropists oftentimes sound a trumpet before 
them. Abou ben Adhem gives to a beggar that he 
may relieve himself of the pain of pity or warm him- 
self with " the generous pleasure of a kindly deed." 
But true benevolence is benevolent not for self's 
sake but for the sake of the other man. Wherefore 
the Lord said, " When thou doest alms let not thy 
left hand know what thy right hand doeth : " that is, 
divest thyself of all self-praise, self-pleasing, self-satis- 
faction. Thus it is written, " Love vaunteth not itself, 
is not puffed up, seeketh not its own." 

Again, this Verily emphasizes the fact that the sum 
total of benevolence is rather a great bundle of small 
kindnesses than one or a few great ones. It seems a 
trifling matter to put a cup of cold water to thirsty 



Inasmuch 85 

lips or lend a hand to the fallen, yet these are the 
true philanthropies. 

" A little bit of patience often makes the sunshine come, 
And a little bit of love makes a very happy home ; 
A little bit of hope makes a rainy day look gay, 
And a little bit of charity makes glad a weary way." 

We are apt to miss our opportunities of serving faith- 
fully in the ranks by waiting for a commission to lead 
the army. We want to preach like Paul, and see 
souls converted as doves flock to their windows ; while 
Christ wants us to evangelize the world by letting our 
light shine every moment of every day. The oppor- 
tunity is all about us. I have heard of a young woman 
who, after listening to a sermon on " Whatsoever thy 
hand findeth to do, do it with thy might," left the 
meeting with a resolve that she would help the first 
needy soul she met. On her way home she passed a 
police station ; and it chanced that a released prisoner, 
a woman of the town, was just coming down the 
steps. "Now is my chance," she inwardly said, "to 
speak a kind word in the Master's name ; but, alas, 
her knees shook and her tongue clave to the roof of 
her mouth. But the opportunity was going and she 
must act ; so, as the poor creature passed, she laid a 
hand upon her shoulder and kissed her. The woman 
shrank back, crying " Don't do that ! Oh, don't do 
that ! Nobody's done that since mother died ! " And 
the way was thus opened for the saving of a soul. These 
are the things the Master requires of us. 



86 The Verilies of Jesus 

And again, this Verily emphasizes the important 
fact that Christ is met with in strange ways and 
places. He honors the sanctuary and the closet with 
his presence ; but if we really desire to serve him let 
us climb rickety stairways and descend into base- 
ments, visit the prisons and hospitals ; and we shall 
find him there in the person of the " little ones." He 
is pleased to identify himself with the poor and suffer- 
ing ; so that when we do a kindness to them in his 
name it is as if we did it unto him. It is a mistake 
to expect Christ to appear before us, in propria persona, 
asking to be fed, clothed, and visited. The least of 
his brethren must be as Christ himself to us. In 
the Vision of Sir Launfal he is represented as say- 
ing, 

" The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
In whatso we share with another's need ; 
Not what we give, but what we share, 
For the gift without the giver is bare ; 
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 

So then, the great matter is to be sure that we are 
fully consecrated to Christ and thus willing to serve 
him in whatsoever guise or incognito he may present 
himself to us. And the only way of making sure of 
this is to do good as we have opportunity unto all 
men. 

And if we are true Christians we are really doing 
this, whether we know it or not. Let us not worry. 



Inasmuch 87 

Christ is not "a hard man." He sees good in our 
lives where we are not conscious of it. He knows the 
main purpose ; and however we may trip and stumble, 
having loved us, he will love us to the end. I believe 
that on the whole, he thinks better of us than we do of 
ourselves. He is placing unknown things to our 
credit and preparing a great surprise for us. We look 
within too much, subject our motives to too precise 
an analysis, grow discouraged without reason, need- 
lessly doubt our purity of purpose and tremble without 
reason in anticipation of the Judgment Day. He that 
sitteth on the throne is our Best Friend. He remem- 
bereth that we are dust. He knows our trials, mis- 
givings, and self-accusations : but all is well if we can 
stand before him, like Peter, saying " Yea, Lord, thou 
knowest that I love thee ! " 



XIV. 
RICHES. 

Verily I say unto you, It is hard for a rich man to enter into the 
kingdom of heaven. Matt. xix. 23. 

To those who, with a malign purpose, asked Jesus 
concerning the lawfulness of the capitation tax, he 
said, " Show me a penny." The coin in evidence was 
probably a silver denarius, having on one side the 
image of Tiberius and on the other the legend, Pontifex 
Maximus. It was an honest coin and worthy of all 
respect ; let it serve our purpose, by way of sugges- 
tion, as to the teaching of Christ concerning the use 
and abuse of money. Hear now the Catechism of 
the Penny. 

Question 1. — What is the moral quality of this 
coin ? 

Answer. — It has none. Everything depends on 
what is done with it. Money is called "currency" 
(from currere, to run), because it passes to and fro 
like a messenger on errands good or evil. It is a 
mere convenience, a medium of exchange, " a common 
denominator of the fractions of life." It was silver 

88 



Riches 89 



in this instance ; but shells or wampum, with conven- 
tional approval, would have answered just as well. 

There never was a more obvious sophism than that 
of Proudhon, " Property is robbery." If there be any 
robbery in the case, it is not that of the owner but of the 
indolent fellow who declines to own it. Industry is 
honesty ; and industry wins the penny. Money-mak- 
ing is a legitimate business, though multitudes pervert 
it. Blessed is he who has the genius for it ! The 
larger his success, the better for himself and for the 
world. 

Question 2. — Who owns the penny ? 

Answer. — Its ownership is threefold. As coin of 
the realm, Caesar, that is, the government, has a trib- 
utary right in it. The man in possession may also 
claim a just ownership, on the ground that he has 
earned it. But the ultimate ownership, back of both 
Caesar and the possessor, rests in God, as Creator and 
Proprietor of all. Caesar's claim is wholly derivative, 
since " the powers that be are ordained of God." The 
possessor's claim is merely secondary, since his strength 
of mind and sinew came from God. 

Question 3. — What is the precise relation of the 
possessor to his penny ? 

Answer. — It is expressed in the word stewardship. 
And just here the teaching of Christ begins. He 
makes frequent use of such terms as " landlord," 
"householder," "husbandman." In the Parable of 
the Talents he represents God as " a man, going into 



go The Verilies of Jesus 

another country, who called his own servants and de- 
livered unto them his goods." The relation is set 
forth still more clearly in the Parable of the Pounds, 
where he says, " A certain nobleman went into a far 
country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and to re- 
turn. And he called ten servants of his and gave 
them ten pounds, and said unto them, Trade ye here- 
with, till I come." 

Question 4. — How long shall the possessor hold his 
penny ? 

Answer. — Until called for. And it may be called 
for any time. God speaks in many voices, ever and 
anon requiring of his people the things entrusted to 
them. An account is kept, meanwhile, in certain 
" books of remembrance;" and sooner or later " the 
Lord of those servants cometh and maketh a reckon- 
ing with them." 

In any case, death ends the tenure. It is an old 
saying, " There are no pockets in shrouds." We take 
nothing with us but our very own ; such as will, rea- 
son, habit and character. All else drops from our 
cold fingers. 

" If thou art rich, thou art poor ; 
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, 
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a season, 
And death unloads thee." 

And after death the Judgment ; that is the reckon- 
ing for goods entrusted to us. This day of reckoning 



Riches 9 1 



is a necessary factor in the problem of human affairs. 
Our world would be but a topsy-turvy world without 
it. Here is a poor man who has spent his life in a 
hard struggle to keep the wolf from his door ; here is 
another of whom we say, " Everything he touches turns 
to gold." Fortunate man ? Well, that depends. We 
must wait to see what happens at the judgment bar. 
There the apparent inequalities of Providence shall be 
satisfactorily accounted for. 

Question 5. — What shall the possessor do with his 
penny ? 

Answer. — Three things are possible. It is clear that 
a considerable part of a man's earnings must be used 
for the necessities of life ; but what after that ? What 
about the margin ? First, it may be hoarded ; like the 
talent which was wrapped in a napkin and buried in 
the ground. The Lord's judgment as to this proce- 
dure is evident from his words, " Thou wicked and 
slothful servant." And again Jesus said, " Lay not 
up for yourself treasures upon the earth, where moth 
and rust consume, and where thieves break through 
and steal : but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 
where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where 
thieves do not break through nor steal : for where thy 
treasure is, there will thy heart be also." 

A second use, which the possessor may make of his 
penny, is to squander it. Thus the prodigal, having 
gotten his portion of the inheritance, " took his journey 
into a far country and wasted his substance with riot- 



92 The Verilies of Jesus 

ous living." Another prodigal, having amassed great 
wealth, crosses the sea and gambles it away at Monte 
Carlo. No doubt there is a temporary pleasure in 
such profligacy ; as Jesus said, " Woe unto you that 
are rich, for ye have received your consolation." So 
far as we know, Dives in the Parable was a respect- 
able gentleman. It does not appear that he was ad- 
dicted to any flagrant vices ; his fault was utter selfish- 
ness. He was arrayed in purple and fine linen and 
fared sumptuously every day ; taking no interest in 
the beggar at his gate. 

Or, thirdly, the possessor of the penny may hold 
it subject to the divine call ; and he will hear that call 
in every appeal for the material or spiritual betterment 
of his fellow-men. 

It is not enough to answer this demand with a tithe. 
The tithe is a good beginning ; that is all. In the 
Parable of the Householder and his Vineyard it is said 
" When the season of the fruits drew near, he sent his 
servants to the husbandmen, to receive his fruits." 
The withholding of such fruits is dishonesty. " Will 
a man rob God ? Yet ye rob me. But ye say, 
Wherein have we robbed thee ? In tithes and offer- 
ings." (Mai. iii. 8-10.) It is a mistake, however, to 
suppose that our obligations are discharged when we 
have turned back to the Lord a percentage of our in- 
come. The penny itself is his. The vineyard is his ; 
the husbandmen holding it only and absolutely in trust 
for him. 



Rich 



es 93 



Question 6. — Are there any dangers attendant on 
the possession of the penny ? 

Answer. — Yes ; many. There is the danger that 
the possessor will regard it as his own. This was the 
fault of "a certain rich man, whose ground brought 
forth plentifully." (Luke ii. 17-21.) " He reasoned 
within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I 
have not where to bestow my fruits ? And he said, 
This will I do ; I will pull down my barns and build 
greater ; and there will I bestow all my grain and my 
goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast 
much goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease, 
eat, drink, be merry. But God said unto him, Thou 
foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee ; 
and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall 
they be?" He spoke of " my fruits," "my barns," 
and "my goods," forgetting the prior claim of God. 
Indeed, he seems not to have brought God into the 
reckoning at all. And it is to be feared that others 
reason in the same way. The penny is oftentimes a 
most plausible sophist. Christ spoke of " the deceit- 
fulness of riches," likening them to thorns which 
"choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful." (Matt. 
xiii. 22.) In order to verify his words one has only 
to contemplate the character of certain possessors of 
wealth. How frequently it shrivels the heart ! How 
it blinds the eyes to fairest things ! How it " chokes " 
the high purposes and noble aspirations of the soul ! 

Another danger is in putting one's trust in the 



94 The Verilies of Jesus 

penny ; that is, giving it a fictitious value and prece- 
dence of better things. Observe the arrogance of a 
certain class. O how lofty are their eyes and their 
eyelids lifted up ! I speak not now of those who 
serve God faithfully with their wealth, but of purse- 
proud parvenus, who make a grotesque display and 
found a false respectability upon it. It was a man of 
this character who said to John Bright, " Do you 
know, sir, that I am worth a million and a half ster- 
ling ? " to whom the blunt old commoner replied, 
" Yes ; and I know that you are worth nothing else." 
It was such that Jesus had in mind when he said, 
" Verily I say unto you, It is hard for a rich man to 
enter into the kingdom of heaven." And when his 
disciples expressed their amazement at this sweeping 
proposition, he put a still deeper emphasis upon it, 
saying, "It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's 
eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of 
God!' (Matt. xix. 23-24.) 

If a man find himself thus betrayed by his penny, 
what shall he do ? Get rid of it ! Aye, if needs be 
by casting it into the sea, as did Menecrates, saying, 
" I will destroy thee lest thou destroy me ! " This 
was the teaching of Jesus in the case of the young 
man who came running and kneeling to him, asking, 
" Good Teacher, What shall I do that I may inherit 
eternal life ? " He said, " One thing thou lackest ; go, 
sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor, and 
thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; and come follow 



Riches 95 



me." (Mark x. 20-22.) The young man did not fol- 
low his wise counsel : " But his countenance fell at 
that saying, and he went away sorrowful ; for he was 
one that had great possessions." It was indeed a 
heroic remedy which Jesus here proposed ; but nothing 
else would do. The penny stood between the soul of 
this young man and God ; therefore it must be sacri* 
ficed. If you have wealth and cannot hold it in honest 
trust for God, it behooves you forthwith to get rid of 
it. For all considerations in this world lead up to the 
great problem, " What doth it profit a man, to gain 
the whole world and forfeit his life ? " 

Question 7. — What are the privileges of the 
penny ? 

Answer. — They are many and great. The man 
who, after attending to the necessities of life, has a 
margin of wealth, be it little or great, may use it for 
the betterment of the condition of his fellow-men. In 
this case he has his reward in what Cowper calls " the 
generous pleasure of kindly deeds." Sidney Smith 
said, " I think of life as arranged in two piles, one of 
misery and the other of happiness. If to-day I can 
take a little from the world's misery and add to its 
happiness, I shall, at evening, think myself a fortunate 
man." 

And there are many who make this gracious use 
of the penny. Think of the asylums, hospitals and 
other institutions of charity, built and supported by 
voluntary contributions. Who shall estimate the 



96 The Verilies of Jesus 

money which is constantly expended in the carrying 
on of beneficent reforms ? O there are many " good 
Samaritans " caring for the wounded, bringing them 
to the inn, paying their fare and saying to the host, 
" Take care of him ; and whatsoever thou spendest 
more, I, when I come back again, will repay thee." 
(Luke x. 35.) 

But there is no obscuring the fact that the merest 
pittance of the wealth possessed by God's people is 
used for the propagation of the gospel. O the shame 
of it ! While enterprises for the mental and physical 
amelioration of the race are receiving millions of the 
Lord's money, his church stretches out her hands like 
a mendicant for the meager support of her endeavors 
to convert the world ! The stewards of the Lord's 
treasure are praying every day, " Thy kingdom come ! " 
while they lavish manifold more on themselves and 
the physical needs of society than on their Missionary 
Boards ; knowing all the while that untold multitudes 
are dwelling in the regions of darkness and of the sha- 
dow of death ! The blinding power of great wealth is no- 
where more conspicuous than in this fact. The word 
of the Master to his unfaithful servant was, " Thou 
oughtest therefore to have put my money to the bank- 
ers, then I should have received back mine own with 
interest." The Church is our Lord's " Exchange," 
through which he would utilize the wealth entrusted 
to his servants, to be held, subject to his demand, for 
the propagation of the gospel and the bringing of the 



Riches 97 



world to God. The time will come when God's talents 
will be thus put at interest for him. Then his mes- 
sengers will run to and fro and the welkin will ring 
with the story of salvation, and the earth shall be 
full of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the 
sea. 

G 



XV. 
GIVING. 

Verily I say unto you, This poor widow cast in more than all they 
that are casting into the treasury. Mark xii. 43. 

On the last day of his earthly ministry our Lord 
went into the temple court and " sat over against the 
treasury." This treasury was the place of the chests 
or receptacles into which the people cast their offerings, 
corresponding to our collection boxes or baskets. These 
chests had flaring apertures. like trumpets, which could 
be made to ring the giver's praise. 

"And he beheld (rather, was observing) how the 
multitude cast money into the treasury." He saw the 
rich throwing their gold pieces into the brazen throat 
of the chests, and in their resounding echoes finding 
their immediate reward. He observed the contribu- 
tors passing by one by one until this woman came, a 
poor widow, and modestly gave out of her penury two 
mites, that is, a paltry farthing ; whereupon he said, 
Verily I say unto you t This poor widow cast in more 
than all they that are casting into the treasury!' Ob- 
serve, (1) She gave modestly. "When thou doest 

98 



Giving 99 



alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand 
doeth." (2) She gave of her penury. God has re- 
gard not so much to what a man gives as, to what he 
keeps. This woman kept nothing ; the farthing was 
" all that she had." She recognized the Lord's owner- 
ship in her little all. (3) She gave in faith, loving 
God and believing that in her penury he would pro- 
vide for her. Thus the manner, the measure and the 
motive of her gift were all approved. 

He sitteth over against the treasury still. All our 
gifts are observed and recorded by him. Will the 
great ledger show, one day, a vast disparity between 
what we have lavished on ourselves and what we have 
given to God. 

The rule of giving is the same that applies in every 
department of the Christian life, to wit, self denial. 
David said wisely in the matter of Araunah's thresh- 
ing floor, " I will not offer unto the Lord of that which 
doth cost me nothing." 

The poor man who forgets a comfort that he may 
cast a penny into the Lord's treasury, is more deserv- 
ing of praise than the millionaire who builds a church 
or endows a hospital, yet denies himself no luxury. 
God is not satisfied with what Shakespeare calls " the 
shaking of our superflux." The members of the Mac- 
edonian church were among the very poorest of the 
early Christians, yet what a fine eulogium was pro- 
nounced upon them. " I bear them witness," wrote 
the apostle, " how their deep poverty abounded unto 

<L.ofC. 



ioo The Verilies of Jesus 

the riches of their liberality. For according to their 
power, yea and beyond their power, they gave of their 
own accord. And this, not as we had hoped, but first 
they gave their own selves to the Lord." 

A Christian's first duty is to Christ and to the 
Church which is his bride. Otherwise selfishness is 
a holier passion than gratitude. There is no saying 
that covers a greater multitude of sins and shortcom- 
ings than the proverb " Charity begins at home." It 
is true that " if any provideth not for his own, and 
specially for his own household, he hath denied the 
faith, and is worse than an unbeliever," but how much 
better, pray, is he that provides for his own wants and 
his own household yet never seeks by prudence and 
economy to share his income with his fellow-men ? 
Shall it be said that the woman of Zarephath did 
wrong to offer the prophet a portion of her meager 
store until she had first made sure that her child and 
herself would not suffer by it ? On the contrary, I 
believe it might be shown, by a process of mathemat- 
ical computation, that benevolence is the best possible 
provision against hunger and nakedness. No man 
ever yet grew poor by " lending to the Lord." There 
is no better investment. It is a policy of insurance 
whose benefits accrue to our children's children. John 
Bunyan wrote : 

" A man there was — and people called him mad — 
The more he gave away the more he had." 

Is it not always so ? How else shall we construe the 



Giving i o i 



promise, " Blessed is the liberal man ; the Lord shall 
make his bed in sickness ; his horn shall be exalted ? " 
" He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly ; 
and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bounti- 
fully." " Give, and it shall be given unto you, good 
measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, 
shall they give into your bosom." " There is that 
scattereth, and increaseth yet more : and there is that 
withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth only to 
want." 

But our giving should be raised above all selfish 
consideration. We ought to give not for self's sake, 
but for love of him who for our sakes became poor 
that we by his poverty might be made rich. The 
gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. What 
shall we render unto him for this unspeakable gift ? 
Is any offering of gold or frankincense or myrrh too 
large to measure our gratitude ? Is any ointment of 
spikenard too costly for the anointing of his feet ? 
God's blessing is always a gratuity ; but, none the less 
does it call for its meed of gratitude. And praise has 
no expression in human life but love and benevolence. 
It is wrong to regard our wealth, little or great, as 
ours in fee simple ; we hold it merely in trust. We 
are God's stewards ; and for the proper use and in- 
vestment of every farthing assigned to us we shall be 
called to give account. If we array ourselves in purple 
and fine linen while the poor lie at our gates naked 
and shivering, or if we dwell in houses of cedar while 



102 The Verilies of Jesus 

the ark of God is within curtains, it is because we are 
appropriating that which never belonged to us. " Yet 
ye rob me," saith the Lord of hosts. " But ye say, 
Wherein have we robbed thee ? In tithes and offer- 
ings ! " Every penny of our wealth is stamped with 
the divine image and superscription ; the gold and the 
silver are his. " Render therefore unto God the 
things that are God's." 

I would rather be an organ-grinder living on the 
charity of those who love the humble harmony of 
sweet sounds, than to be a millionaire with a soul de- 
lighting only in the magnificent music of clinking coin. 
The happiest man that ever lived was one who had 
not where to lay his head ; and he revealed the secret 
of his surpassing joy when he said, " It is more blessed 
to give than to receive." " He was the great Giver. 
He came from heaven to bring good gifts to men — 
sight to the blind, peace to the troubled soul, rest to 
the weary and heavy laden, light and life to all that 
were in darkness and the shadow of death ; a cup of 
God's cool water for the parched lips of those that 
were thirsting for righteousness. And to the end 
that these good gifts might bear the name of self-deny- 
ing love, he gave his tears for sorrow, his blood for sin. 
He gave his life a ransom for the lost. Loving to 
give, he gave all. He that would be truly happy must 
be Christlike in this : "willing to communicate." It 
was one of the favorite sayings of Marcus Aurelius 
that "an unshared pleasure could not be enjoyed;" 



Giving 103 

and Ausonius was fond of saying, " An ingrate is 
earth's ugliest production." Put these two maxims 
together and you have the reason why an illiberal man 
is of all men most miserable. His heart is a prison- 
cell where a spirit that was made to rejoice in love 
and liberty and light is bound with the iron chains of 
selfishness. There are no windows in his cell through 
which this captive may watch the pure delights of his 
fellow-men — no windows above through which he may 
look toward the God at whose right hand are pleasures 
forevermore. But the generous man whose eyes are 
ever turned outward and upward, who denies himself 
that he may help the needy, and spend and be spent 
for his Master's sake ; who forgets himself in his eager- 
ness to hear the widow's thanks and God's " Well 
done, good servant," this is the man who has the peace 
that passeth understanding. 

" But for one end are riches worth your care ; 
To make humanity the minister 
Of bounteous Providence, and teach the breast 
The generous luxury the gods enjoy." 

Giving is as really a grace as praying or serving. 
It is an essential arc of the great circle of character. 
Wherefore let us give because it is blessed to give. 
" Give and let not thy heart be grieved when thou 
givest, because that for this the Lord shall bless thee 
in all whereunto thou puttest thy hand." Give like 
the liberal God, " who from his gracious nature doth 
bestow, nor stops to ask reward." Give because it 



104 The Verilies of Jesus 

yields in this present life a hundred fold, and in the 
time to come life everlasting. If God has elected you 
to riches, let not your riches be tied like a millstone 
about your neck, nor clutched till death shall open 
your cold fingers and cry, " Let go." 

Make to yourselves friends who shall receive you into 
everlasting habitations. On the tombstone of the good 
Earl of Devon and his wife these words are written : 
" What we spent we had, what we left we lost, what 
we gave we have." All that we store in bags that wax 
old, all that we pay as a bribe to honor, all that we 
waste on follies that perish with the using ; all this is 
gone. Shrouds have no pockets. But what we give 
we keep ; what we lend to the Lord is ours forever. 



XII. 
HIS EQUALITY WITH GOD. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, 
but what he seeth the Father doing : for what things soever he doeth, 
these the Son also doeth in like manner. John v. 19. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was born, I am. 

John viii. 58. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I 
send receiveth me ; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent 
me. John xiii. 20. 

The problem of the Messiah is the problem of the 
ages. Jesus is the claimant. Is Jesus the Christ 
or not ? All earnest souls are interested in this 



query. 



" We walk at high noon, and the bells 
Call to a thousand oracles, 
But the sound deafens, and the light 
Is stronger than our dazzled sight ; 
The letters of the sacred Book 
Glimmer and swim beneath our look ; 
Still struggles in the age's breast 
With deepening agony of quest 
The old entreaty : ' Art thou he, 
Or look we for the Christ to be ? ' " 

105 



106 The Verilies of Jesus 

He claims to be the Messiah. To the woman at 
the well he said, " I that speak unto thee am he." 
Over and over again, on various occasions, he reiter- 
ated it. He insisted on his divine nature and mis- 
sion. Thrice he sealed it with a double Verily : when 
he affirmed his oneness with God, " Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but 
what he seeth the Father doing : for what things so- 
ever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner" 
(John v. 19) ; again when he arrogated to himself the 
most sacred of the divine titles, " Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, Before Abraham was born, I am " (John viii. 
58) ; and again when he identified himself with God 
in the fellowship of his disciples, " Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send re- 
ceiveth me ; and he that receiveth me receiveth him 
that send me." (John xiii. 20.) 

The claim of Jesus is perfectly clear. The only 
question is, does he verify it ? 

A weaver who had made an elaborate piece of 
tapestry hung it, stretched upon the tenter-hooks, in 
his yard. That night it was stolen. A piece of tapes- 
try was found by the officers which seemed to answer 
the description, but as the pattern was not unlike that 
of other fabrics, there must be definite proof. It was 
brought to the weaver's yard and there the perforations 
in the fabric were found to correspond precisely to 
the tenter-hooks. This was demonstration. In like 
manner if we place the life and character of Jesus 



His Equality with God 107 

over against all prophecies of Messiah in Scripture, in 
the sacred books of the false religions, and in the 
universal longings of the race, we shall find that there 
is a perfect correspondence point by point. If this 
shall indeed prove to be the fact, we should feel justi- 
fied in saying that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the long- 
looked-for Messiah, the Christ of God. 

I. His birth. It is everywhere agreed in these leg- 
ends and prophecies that the Messiah must be God- 
man. This is the basis of Anselm's famous argu- 
ment, Cur Deus Homo. The Messiah must in his na- 
ture be like Jacob's ladder ; his humanity resting 
upon the earth and his divinity taking hold upon the 
throne of God. At this point Jesus meets the re- 
quirement. Of him it had been prophesied, " A vir- 
gin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his 
name Immanuel, which is, being interpreted, God with 
us." 

II. His character. The One who is to deliver the 
race from its sin must himself be sinless. But where 
shall such an One be found ? We peer, by the light 
of Diogenes' lantern, into all human faces in vain. 
There is none that doeth good ; no, not one. Here 
Jesus of Nazareth is unique. He betrays no con- 
sciousness of sin, utters no cry of penitence, and be- 
trays no concern for his own salvation. On the other 
hand he challenges the world to find a joint in the 
harness of his perfect righteousness. The school- 
men of the Middle Ages discussed at great length the 



io8 The Verilies of Jesus 

question whether he was " not able to sin or able not 
to sin ; " but they never suggested that he sinned. 
The judge who delivered him to death brought him out 
to Gabbatha and said to the people, " I find no fault 
in him at all." The centurion, who had charge of his 
execution, was moved to cry, " Verily, this was a right- 
eous man ! " 

III. His preaching. The general feeling was, as 
the woman of Samaria said, " That the Messiah Com- 
eth ; when he is come, he will declare unto us all 
things." He was to solve the great questions of duty 
and destiny. The carpenter of Nazareth did this. He 
touched the great problems of the eternal life with a bold 
hand. He spake not as the scribes but with author- 
ity. He untied knots that had defied all the Athe- 
nian schools. The sermons of others die by limitation. 
Origen, Tertullian, Chrysostom, their voices have left 
only a lingering echo. But the discourses of Jesus, his 
sermon to Nicodemus, his sermon on the mount, his 
sermon at the well, his sermon in the plain, his ser- 
mon in the upper chamber, his sermon on the mount 
of ascension are still " burning thoughts in breathing 
words," and they flame around the world. A detach- 
ment of Roman soldiers was sent to arrest him as he 
was once teaching in Solomon's porch. They lis- 
tened for a time and were amazed. On returning 
without their prisoner, they were asked, " Why have 
ye not brought him ? " A strange answer was this, 
" Never man spake like this man." 



His Equality with God 109 

IV. His miracles. These were unlike all other 
miracles. Not only in their beneficence, but in that 
fact that they were all symbolical of spiritual truth. 
The opening of blind eyes set forth the power of 
Jesus to enable the soul to see spiritual things. The 
wiping away of the leper's spots was an apologue of 
the power of the gospel to deliver the soul from the 
defilement of sin. The healing of the paralytic gave 
assurance that Jesus could energize the palsied will, 
and the raising of Lazarus was but a shadow picture 
of what the Mighty One is ever doing in bringing 
forth those who are dead in trespasses and sins from 
the dark sepulchre of an endless despair into newness 
of life. The messengers whom John the Baptist sent 
to ask, " Art thou he that cometh ? or look we for an- 
other ? " were told to stand aside and see what they 
should see. Then, after Jesus had wrought wonders 
before them, he said, " Go and tell John the things 
which ye hear and see : the blind receive their sight, 
and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the 
deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor 
have good tidings preached to them." 

V. His death. This is the living center of the gos- 
pel. All prophecies, all mythological legends, all the 
intuitive longings of the sinful race call tor the vicarious 
death of the Messiah. Prometheus, chained to the 
rock with the vulture gnawing at his vitals, cries out, 
" I must endure this until one of the gods shall come 
and bear it for me." The penalty of sin is death ; as 



no The Verilies of Jesus 

it is written, " The soul that sinneth it shall die." If 
the Messiah is to deliver the race from its penalty, 
he must die for it. So here we witness Jesus stag- 
gering up the slope of Calvary under the burden of 
his cross — a mighty Atlas bearing a world of sin 
upon him. The infidel Rousseau was forced to pay 
involuntary tribute to the character of Jesus in this 
pre-eminent act of self-sacrifice. He says, " The 
death of Socrates, peacefully philosophizing among 
friends, appears the most agreeable that one could 
wish : while that of Jesus, expiring in agonies, abused, 
insulted, and accused by a whole nation, is the most 
horrible that one could fear. Socrates, indeed, in re- 
ceiving the cup of hemlock, blessed the weeping ex- 
ecutioner who administered it ; but Jesus, amidst ex- 
cruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormen- 
tors. Yes, verily, if the life and death of Socrates 
were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are 
those of a God." 

VI. His resurrection from the dead. This, also, 
appears in the universal foregleam of Messiah. He, 
who is to deliver the world from death, cannot him- 
self be subject to it. The Holy One must not " see 
corruption " ; his soul must not be left in Sheol. 
The resurrection of Jesus is God's amen put upon his 
redemptive work. In this we, who have fellowship 
with Christ, triumph over death and hell ; as it is 
written, " Now hath Christ been raised from the death, 
the first fruits of them that are asleep. Then shall 



His Equality with God in 

come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swal- 
lowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? 
O death, where is thy victory ? The sting of death is 
sin ; and the power of sin is the law ; but thanks be 
to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord 
Jesus Christ." 

VII. His abiding presence. The crowning proof 
of the Messiahship of Jesus lies in the fact that, hav- 
ing finished the work of his ministry, he did not 
abandon the world to its fate, but took up his abode 
among us. He organized the Church through which 
he now administers his redemptive work by the in- 
fluence of his Spirit, and will continue so to do until the 
kingdoms of this world shall become his own. This is 
the " philosophy of history." The cross of Jesus leads 
the march of progress. Civilization is but the brighter 
shining of his face. All things are moving on in a ce- 
lestial order toward that golden age in which Jesus shall 
reign where'er the sun does his successive journeys 
run. 



XVII. 
HIS MEDIATORSHIP. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye shall see the heaven opened, and 
the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. 

John i. 51. 

I believe no man ever looked calmly and judicially 
into the face of Jesus Christ without yielding an as- 
sent to his superhuman claims. Philip answered the 
skepticism of Nathanael by saying merely " Come and 
see " ; and when the latter, with a mind free from bias 
and open to conviction, interviewed Jesus, the result 
was a foregone conclusion. 

The words with which the Master saluted him re- 
vealed a profound insight into his character ; and when 
he went on to show his acquaintance with Nathanael 
in his retirement under the fig tree, the man was over- 
whelmed with sudden conviction ; " Rabbi," he ex- 
claimed, " thou art the Son of God ; thou art King of 
Israel." 

The answer of Jesus is full of significance, " Because 
I said unto thee, I saw thee underneath the fig tree, 
believest thou ? Thou shalt see greater things than 

112 



His Mediatorship 113 

these. Verily, verify, I say unto you. Ye shall see the 
heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and 
descending upon the Son of man" (John i. 51.) 

Here is the setting forth of one of the most impor- 
tant and comforting truths of the Gospel, namely, the 
Mediatorship of Christ. All other interpretations of 
this Verily, such as a reference to the transfiguration 
or the ascension, fall far short. Our Lord means to 
say that he is the connecting link between earth and 
heaven ; the Mediator, the Days-man, the Restorer ; 
who, with one hand lifted to the Father's throne, and 
another stretched out to sinners, brings the Creator 
and the creature into at-one-ment through his gospel 
of reconciliation ; thus realizing the Homeric dream 
of " the binding of this world as with gold chains 
about the feet of God." 

To this end he presents himself as Theanthropos, 
or God-man. He must be man, as Anselm argues, 
that he may be able to suffer ; and he must also be 
God, that he may suffer enough for all. 

The two historic titles of the Messiah were " Son 
of God," and " Son of man." Let it be observed that 
when Nathanael addressed Jesus as " the Son of God," 
the latter did not disavow it, but immediately spoke of 
himself as also " the Son of man." His divinity and 
humanity, are alike necessary to his Mediatorial office. 
He is "very God of very God " and also very man of 
very man. 

And how picturesquely he presents this truth ! Had 
H 



114 The Verilies of Jesus 

he used the terminology of theological schools, or of 
the Ecclesiastical Councils in which this doctrine of 
his Mediatorship was subsequently formulated, the 
probability is that Nathanael and others like him 
would have been plunged into a quagmire of doubt 
and wonderment ; but this was not his method. He 
was the great Kindergartner, teaching the wise as if 
they were children, in " object lessons " which he 
called parables. As he enforced the truth of the atone- 
ment upon the mind of the rabbi Nicodemus by a 
reference to the brazen serpent, so here he illustrates 
his Mediatorship by the familiar story of Jacob's lad- 
der. 

And where could a closer parallel be found ? Jacob 
went out from his father's house a lonely fugitive, and, 
lighting upon a certain place, he made him a pillow of 
stones and lay down to sleep. Alone ! Exiled from 
home, pursued by just anger, sensible of guilt, won- 
dering whether God had forsaken him. Then came 
the wonderful dream ; " a ladder set up on the earth 
and the top of it reached to heaven, and the angels of 
God ascending and descending on it." 

Are we to understand, then, that Jesus affirms the 
ministry of angels ? Why not ? " Are they not all 
ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for them 
that shall inherit salvation ?" It is a blessed truth ; 
and such perversions as spiritualism and saint-worship 
must not drive us from it. But observe, the ladder is 
Christ. There would be no commerce of any sort be- 



His Mediatorship 115 

tween earth and heaven, were it not for his Mediator- 
ship. All pleasant thoughts that bind us to the skies, 
all hopes of reunion with those who have gone before, 
and all their possible ministries in our behalf are due 
to his redemptive work and vitally associated with his 
intercession for us. 

By way of this ladder we must return to God. 
" Neither is there any other name under heaven, that 
is given among men, wherein we must be saved." 

By the same Mediatorship of Jesus we are sustained 
in Christian life and service. For here is the token 
of his perpetual imminence : " No one hath ascended 
into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven, even 
the Son of man, who is in heaven." He is there, 
here, everywhere ; with us alway, even unto the end 
of the world. So that we bear no cross alone, con- 
front no temptation alone, meet no obligations alone, 
bear no burdens alone. " The yoke is always for two." 
No task can be onerous when we feel that he helps us 
to discharge it. Self-dependence makes us weak and 
miserable ; the sense of his presence enables us to 
glory in tribulation. Joseph of Arimathea must have 
rejoiced under his cross when he felt the touch of the 
great Cross-bearer beside him. " I can do all through 
Christ which strengtheneth me." It is never I alone 
who strive and suffer ; but always Christ and I. 

And our prayers are offered in his name. The word 
of power is " for Jesus' sake." The angels going up, 
as it were, with prayer and coming down with blessing, 



1 1 6 The Verilies of Jesus 

make their journeys through him. He ever liveth to 
make intercession for us. Our unworthy petitions — 
"and we do often pray to our own harms " — are sifted 
through his wisdom and love. We on our knees may 
make a mistake, but he on his throne never. This 
makes it quite safe for us to pray, and in our prayers 
to unbosom ourselves to God. 

The consummation of his Mediatorship will be seen 
on the Great Day. He will stand as our advocate 
before the throne of justice. He will assume our 
place and answer for us. Were we to enter a plea for 
ourselves it must be " Guilty"; but pleading in our 
behalf his word is "Pardoned." Then, clothed with 
the garment of his imputed righteousness, we shall 
enter into his joy. And what a song we shall raise 
to our Mediator in that day ; " Not unto us, not unto 
us, O Lord ; but unto thy great name be the glory." 



XVIII. 
A PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY. 

Verily I say unto you, No prophet is acceptable in his own 
country. Luke iv. 24. 

The people of Nazareth were eager to see and hear 
Jesus. Many things had happened since he had 
closed his carpenter shop and gone forth on his min- 
istry. They never supposed that a townsman of theirs 
would achieve such renown ; for his name was now 
upon every lip. Wherever he had been he had created 
a sensation by his wonderful words and works. So 
when he made his appearance in the synagogue at the 
Sabbath service all eyes were turned upon him : and 
when he rose to expound the Scriptures all were on 
the qui vive to hear what he would say. He turned, 
in the scroll of Isaiah, to the lesson of the day : " The 
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me 
to preach good tidings to the poor : he hath sent me to 
proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight 
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to 
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." (Luke iv. 
18-19.) He proceeded to apply this Messianic proph- 

117 



1 1 8 The Verilies of Jesus 

ecy to himself, saying "To-day hath this Scripture 
been fulfilled in your ears ! " 

And they wondered at the gracious words which 
proceeded out of his mouth. But their impression 
was a fleeting one ; prejudice soon asserted its sway, 
and wonder and admiration gave place to unbelief. 
" Is not this Joseph's son ? " they began to ask. " Did 
we not play with him in childhood ? Has he not 
mended our furniture and made our plows ? How, 
then, can he be the Messiah ? This is preposterous ? 
We know him too well." 

All of which he answered by quoting a familiar 
proverb, " Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accept- 
able in his own country." (Luke iv. 24.) The imme- 
diate application of these words is apparent ; but this 
does not exhaust their meaning. They suggest a 
general proposition, far-reaching, practical, and of suffi- 
cient importance to warrant the use of the Verily, to 
wit, there is danger in an intimate acquaintance with 
truth. 

We have it set forth in certain proverbs of our time, 
such as, " No man is a hero to his valet," " Familiarity 
breeds contempt," " Distance lends enchantment to 
the view," " Blessings brighten as they take their 
flight." 

The privilege enjoyed by the members of the house- 
hold at Nazareth, in knowing Jesus in the routine of 
common life, was of inestimable value, but it had its 
drawbacks. It created a natural prejudice against his 



A Prophet in His Own Country 119 

supernatural claims. No doubt his kinsfolk would 
have agreed as to his unusual purity of character; 
but that was a very different thing from admitting 
his divinity. So it is written, " His brethren believed 
not on him." 

The poet Coleridge in the Vale of Chamonix was so 
overwhelmed by the stupendous beauty of the land- 
scape that ice plains and mountain-torrents seemed to 
be echoing " God ! " But had a herdsman, born and 
bred in the valley, been asked what voices he heard, 
his answer would probably have been, " The bleating of 
my sheep and lowing of my cattle." There is always 
the danger that moral as well as natural beauty may 
grow commonplace on intimate acquaintance. Where- 
fore the warning of Jesus was not without cause. 

We who have been trained in Christian homes have 
special need of caution. We learned about Christ at 
our mother's knees. We sat in the village church 
and heard the story of the crucifixion until it became 
an oft-told tale. How is it with us now ? Are we 
like the people at Calvary who " stood beholding ? " 
When Antony discoursed to the populace over the 
dead body of Caesar he so aroused their emotions by 
pointing at the cloak, blood-stained and rent by the 
assassins' daggers, that there was an immediate outcry 
for vengeance. Surely the tragedy of Golgotha should 
have an equally profound effect on those who believe 
themselves to be saved through it. But how stolid 
our hearts, how slow the current of our grief ! 



120 The Verilies of Jesus 

It is related of an ancient king that when he heard of 
Christ's crucifixion for the first time, he cried, " Had 
I been there I would have led my army of Franks to 
the rescue ! " But we have heard it so often ! " O 
foolish Galatians," writes Paul, "who did bewitch 
you ; before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly set 
forth crucified ? " 

The same fact is evident in our attitude toward the 
Scriptures. One would suppose that the old Book 
would be all the more precious by reason of the memo- 
ries that gather about it ; but this is one of the reasons 
urged in these days for rejecting it. The written 
Word, like the incarnate Word, is " not without honor 
save in its own country." The heathen hear it gladly. 
Its truths are to them as good news from a far country. 
But we " know it by heart ; " the Twenty-third Psalm, 
the Fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, the Fourteenth of 
John, the Eighth of Romans are at our finger-tips ; 
and alas, how is the fine gold dimmed ! The very 
fact that our fathers and mothers touched the Bible 
with reverent hands and left the stain of their grateful 
tears upon its pages, is urged against it. We are 
admonished " to steer clear of the traditional view," and 
to receive with caution the truths to which our early 
teaching inclines us. 

The zest of public worship is liable to wear off in 
the same way. How often the aged and bed-ridden 
lament the loss of Church privileges, and how fre- 
quently we hear it said, under such circumstances, " Oh, 



A Prophet in His Own Country 121 

I never appreciated the blessing until I lost it ! " On 
a hunting trip in the Dakotas, some years ago, I came 
upon a town where public worship was almost an un- 
known privilege. My consent to preach on the follow- 
ing Sunday was announced among the farmers of the 
surrounding country. Some were there who had not 
heard a sermon for years ; I have never had a more 
attentive or eager congregation. Far different is the 
habit of many professing Christians who live where 
churches abound. How reluctant, oftentimes, their 
attendance ; how languid their interest. Are they 
surfeited by overmuch privilege ? 

" Strange we never prize the music 
Till the sweet voiced bird is flown ; 
Strange that we should slight the violets 
Till the lovely flowers are gone ; 
Strange that Summer skies and sunshine 
Never seem one half so fair, 
As when Winter's snowy pinions 
Shake the white down in the air ! " 

And the old hymns, too, grow commonplace by usage. 
The very associations that should make them precious 
seem to depreciate them, as coins passing from hand 
to hand lose the image and superscription of the king. 
Take note of the congregation when " Coronation " is 
sung ; or "When I survey the Wondrous Cross," or 
" Jesus, Lover of my Soul," or " Nearer my God to 
Thee." Time was when these old hymns were new ; 
then they were sung with tears. What has happened ? 
Ah, like the prophet in his own country, they have 



122 The Verilies of Jesus 

passed in and out among us so long and exchanged 
" Good morning " with us so often ! 

What shall we do to regain the lost fervor ? Think ! 
Gaze fixedly at the cross until " the eye affecteth the 
heart." Muse ; while we are musing the fire burns. 
Keep in constant vital touch with God. Without 
this, prayer itself becomes a perfunctory duty, " ho- 
sannas languish on our tongues and our devotion dies." 

The people of Nazareth were " offended " (literally, 
scandalized) at Jesus because his presence was so 
familiar. That presence had in it the possibility of 
unspeakable blessing ; but it was of no advantage to 
them. Well might Christ emphasize the danger of 
high privilege. To whom much is given, of him shall 
much be required. What manner of persons ought 
they to be who know all about Christ, live in an at- 
mosphere of religious truth, and have easy access to 
the Oracles and the mercy seat ! Let us take heed 
to ourselves least it be said of us that we were " anear 
the kirk, afar frae God." 



XIX. 
OUR GREATER WORKS. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works 
that I do shall he do also ; and greater works than these shall he do ; 
because I go unto the Father. John xiv. 12. 

It is recorded of Jesus that, as he approached the 
cross, " having loved his own, he loved them unto the 
end." He gathered the. disciples in the upper room, 
and sought to comfort them in view of their impending 
sorrow. One of the great promises given on that oc- 
casion, as a ground of consolation, was this, Verily, 
verily y I say unto you. He that believeth on me> the 
works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works 
than these shall he do ; because I go unto the Father. 
(John xiv. 12.) 

The work accomplished by Jesus during his earthly 
ministry when viewed in itself was almost insignifi- 
cant. A few sick people healed of their infirmities ; 
a few sermons preached on great spiritual truths ; a 
few disciples recruited from among the laboring class 
in an humble province of a remote corner of the earth ; 
a few sinners saved from sin. That was all. 

123 



124 The Verilies of Jesus 

But this work, as a preparation for what should 
follow, was of immeasurable importance. The evi- 
dential value of the miracle was destined to be felt 
through all subsequent ages. The doctrines and pre- 
cepts set forth in Christ's preaching were to furnish 
the basis of Christianity. The Twelve, "a feeble 
folk like the conies," were the nucleus of a church 
now numbering some hundreds of millions of souls. 
The tragedy on Golgotha, apparently an ignominious 
ending of a troubled life, was the laying of the blood- 
cemented foundations of a world wide kingdom. 

And the work goes on. The cross did not conclude 
it. In his last interview with his disciples Jesus said, 
"All authority hath been given unto me in heaven 
and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of 
all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit : teach- 
ing them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded 
you ; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end 
of the world." And again he said, " Ye shall receive 
power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you : and 
ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all 
Judea, and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part 
of the earth." (Acts i. 8.) This means that he, 
seated at the right hand of power, is working through 
his people for the conquest of the world. 

It is not strange, therefore, that he said, " The 
works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works 
than these shall ye do," since he himself is really do- 



Our Greater Works 125 

ing the works which we, merely as his agents, seem 
to do. His apostles had power to work miracles like 
his. In their preaching they did but repeat his words, 
yet with what stupendous results ! In his whole min- 
istry he did not win one tenth as many converts as 
Peter did on the single day of Pentecost. And there 
have been many pentecostal ingatherings in the his- 
tory of the Church. Think of Paul's missionary har- 
vests ; and of the mighty things accomplished by mis- 
sionaries and evangelists in every age. 

Let it be remembered, however, that all these 
"greater works" are the works of Christ himself work- 
ing through men. Who is Paul or Apollos or Cephas ? 
Who is Wesley or Whitefield or Moody ? Christ is 
all. He sowed the seed of which we reap the harvests. 
He laid the foundations of the temple in the building 
of which he is using the services of all who love and 
follow him. With his bleeding hand he raised the 
banner which leads us to world-victories. And his 
promise is that he will be personally with us even to 
the end of the present order of things. Our power 
is his power resting upon us and working through us. 

All this because, as he said, " I go unto my Father." 
For when he left the world it was farewell to all the 
limitations of his earthly life. He went to reassume 
" the glory which he had with the Father before the 
world was." 

And in going he left a great bequest to us : " Even 
the Spirit of Truth : whom the world cannot receive ; 



126 The Verilies of Jesus 

for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him ; ye 
know him ; for he abideth with you, and shall be in 
you." (John xiv. 17.) His Spirit is the executive 
of the present dispensation. Through him we re- 
ceive the enduement of power for service. By him 
we accomplish these greater works. Wherefore it is 
of immense importance that we should, as Moody used 
to say, " honor the Holy Ghost." His influence is 
the unspeakable gift of God. 

Our faith is the measure of our power. " He that 
believeth on me " — this is the condition of our accom- 
plishing the greater works. Faith removes moun- 
tains by bringing us into vital touch with omnipotence. 
There is no limit. " Of myself I can do nothing ; but, 
" I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me." 

It was, doubtless, with this in mind that Paul of- 
fered his great prayer for the Christians at Ephesus, 
" For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, 
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is 
named, that he would grant you, according to the 
riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with 
power through his Spirit in the inward man ; that 
Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith ; to 
the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 
may be able to apprehend with all the saints, what is 
the breadth and length and height and depth, and 
to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, 
that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God." 
(Ephesians iii. 14-19.) 



XX. 
FAITH. 

Verily I say unto to you, I have not found so great faith, no, not 
in Israel. Matt. viii. 10. 

Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, 
ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and 
it shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. 

Matt. xvii. 20. 

Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not 
only do what is done to the fig-tree, but even if ye shall say unto 
this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, it shall be 
done. Matt. xxi. 21. 

In one of President Woolsey's sermons to the stu- 
dents at Yale, he says, " The power of what is called 
Faith, regarded simply as a motive to action, without 
respect to the reality of its object, is now admitted on 
all hands." 

But what is Faith ? The " assurance of things 
hoped for, a conviction of things not seen." Even 
your sceptic philospher is frank to avow that a man 
whose creed is bounded by the possibilities of touch 
and eyesight is at best an untrustworthy, mayhap, a. 
baneful man. The great inspirations are breathed 
into us by forces immaterial. The believer is the 

127 



128 The Verilies of Jesus 

only productive toiler. Though his faith be affixed to 
nothing better than specters and chimeras yet is he 
uplifted and energized by it. " If this be a delusion," 
said one of the saints, " do not undeceive me ! Among 
these shadows let me live and die." If we must choose 
between the malarial swamps of materialism and the 
high altitudes where Brockens are beckoning from 
every cloud, let us, by all means, abide on the moun- 
tain-tops. Better be a transcendental dreamer than a 
man with a muck-rake. Better have Napoleon's faith 
in the Star of Destiny than no faith at all. 

But suppose our faith takes hold on eternal actuali- 
ties ? Ah, then, what genial lamps illuminate the 
soul ! What kindly eyes, clear as stars of the blue 
heaven, look into ours ! What arms uphold us ! 

Here is the line dividing between superstition and 
religion. One is a blinking and groping after phos- 
phorescent lights ; the other is a climbing toward the 
lit windows of the Father's house ; one is ghost- worship, 
the other is God-worship, that is, of the true and liv- 
ing One. It is well to say, " I believe ; " but better 
still to say, " I know him whom I have believed and I 
am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I 
have committed unto him." An anchor the soul 
must have, though it never touch the ocean's bed, but 
Oh, if it be sure and steadfast, taking hold of that 
which is within the veil ! This is religion. The hold- 
ing fast of the soul ; its return from dreams and visions 
to things matter-of-fact. 



Faith 129 



And here is where the earnest life begins. There is 
no living until faith has reached out and taken hold 
of the unseen. Though a man get all the wisdom of 
the schools, though his barns be full, though his honors 
be thick upon him, yet, failing in this, like the young 
ruler, he lacks the one thing needful. 

Faith is living among the realities. It is putting 
things at their right relative value. It is placing the 
emphasis on facts as against fancies, on realities as 
against phantasms. It is making room for God and 
giving him his proper place in the economy of life. 
A man of faith is larger than his shop or his office ; 
he is larger than his environment ; he refuses to live 
within a world circumscribed by the physical senses. 
He sees things that lie beyond the range of fleshly 
eyes. He touches things that cannot be reached by 
the finger tips. To him things visible are but a pass- 
ing show : " the things which are seen are temporal, 
but the things which are not seen are eternal." Gold, 
pleasure, laurel wreaths are shadows ; he counts them 
as naught : realities are all. 

Here is the secret of the triumphant life. The im- 
mortals endure as seeing him who is invisible. They 
shake off the dust of a world that dies, and journey on 
to a better country, even an heavenly. They believe ! 
Take faith out of the lives of the ancient worthies in 
the eleventh chapter of Hebrews and what have you ? 
They are no better than Nimrod and Belshazzar and 
Darius and Meneptah; a procession of names and 



130 The Verilies of Jesus 

grotesque figures on marble slabs and monuments. 
They lived, they died ! The roll-call is hollow as the 
beating of a drum. Wherein does Moses differ from 
Xerxes ? Both alike lashed the sea ; but Moses lashed 
it in the name of God. Wherein does Rahab differ 
from Aspasia ? Both were harlots. Aspasia reasoned 
with philosophers ; but Rahab trusted in the divine 
convenant in token whereof she let down from her 
window the scarlet thread. Wherein was Samson 
better than Hercules ? Did not both rend the jaws 
of lions ? Aye ; but the long, braided locks of Sam- 
son were the symbol of his faith ; shear those locks, 
and he is weak as other men. 

This is the differentiating line which runs through 
all human life, to separate the dying from the immor- 
tal. If men, who are raised to places of authority, 
rule for God, they rule for ever ; if not, they are laid 
away in the cemeteries of the pigmies. If men of 
wealth make to themselves friends of the mammon of 
unrighteousness by using it as a solemn trust for the 
welfare of their fellow men, then are they by faith 
rich toward God ; if not, they die like one of whom a 
recent editorial in one of our newspapers said, " The 
frog's legs that were served upon his table have as just 
a title to immortality as he." 

How shall we explain this power of faith ? Where- 
fore should a man be chosen here and there from the 
common herd and immortalized ? The reason is clear. 
To begin with, it brings a man into touch with God. 



Faith 



I 3 I 



There is no other way of approach to God ; as it is 
written, " He that cometh to God must believe that 
he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after 
him." To bring one's soul into line with the divine will 
is to find one's self, and to assume an attitude of power. 
I am a cipher ; but when I move up against the great 
Unit, I am ten, a hundred, a thousand, if you will ; and 
herein I fulfil the prediction, " One shall put ten thou- 
sand to flight." 

I recently saw a tug in the New York Bay drawing 
six barges of iron ; the rope by which it was fastened 
to them was powerless in itself, yet they could not 
move without it. So faith couples the soul with God ; 
and, binding us to omnipotence, it makes us laborers 
together with God. 

Then follows self-respect. A man perceives God 
now, not as an abstraction but as Immanuel, " God 
with us." He looks into the face of Jesus, reads there 
the story of pardoning grace, and accepts it. The 
sin that shamed him is blotted out. He reads the blood- 
atonement as Abel, standing beside his primeval altar, 
read it. He enters into " the reproach of Christ " as 
Moses entered into it. He sees the day of Messiah 
as Abraham " saw it and was glad." An infinite vista 
of possibilities is opened before him. He moves up 
to the side of the " first-born among many brethren," 
who said, " As the Father sent me so send I you." 
Life has new meanings for him. He lives no longer as 
one of the ephemera. Knowing that he dies not " as 



132 The Verilies of Jesus 

the beast dieth," he measures his life by corresponding 
responsibility. 

Thus he necessarily puts a new emphasis on truth. 
For truth is the basis of conduct ; since " as a man 
thinketh in his heart, so is he." He longs to solve 
the mighty problems that reach out into the eternal 
aeons. " There are so many voices and none of them 
is without signification " for him. He turns to his 
Bible, and searches it as for hid treasure. He sits at 
the feet of Jesus and learns of him. He hears him 
teaching, " not as the Scribes but as one having author- 
ity ; "and he takes him at his word. Doubt is dispelled, 
— the doubt " that makes us lose the good we oft might 
win by fearing to attempt." With vanishing doubt 
fear takes its flight. Faith feeds on faith. Thus he 
advances " from strength to strength " in the symmet- 
rical building of character. He moves away from such 
timorous phrases as " I guess " or " I wonder " to 
" I know " and " I believe." 

And in this sacred quest of truth, duty becomes su- 
preme. 

" So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
So near is God to man, 
When Duty whispers low, Thou must, 
The youth replies, I can ! " 

He hears his Master saying, " He that believeth on 
me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater 
works than these shall he do. As he looks toward 
eternity, the fear of death vanishes ; for death is but 



Faith 133 

"the covered bridge, leading from light to light, 
through a brief darkness." And, more and more, 
the seriousness of life grows upon this man ; since 
life is the season given for preparation for eternity. 
To live for eternity is, to him, another way of saying, 
" Live to-day ! " 

So faith, in brief, lifts him above his sordid environ- 
ment. He is no longer the creature of circumstance. 
He is "in the world but not of it." He can endure 
sorrow, because it worketh for him a far more exceed- 
ing and eternal weight of glory. He prepares himself 
for trial by drinking water out of the King's well. 
He confronts difficulties as did the priests, who walked 
around Jericho blowing rams' horns : and difficulties, 
like the walls of Jericho, fall down flat before him. 
His conflict with temptation is like the historic battle 
which was fought on Lookout Mountain with the clear 
of heaven above and the storm clouds far beneath. 
The world is so little now ! Heaven so fair, eternity 
so vast ! Duty is so important, character so inesti- 
mable ! God has been taken into the reckoning ; and 
God, and the verities which center in him, are all in all. 

This is the victory that overcometh the world, even 
your faith. Here is the secret of courage, of op- 
timism and of final triumph. If God be for us, who 
can be against us ? 

It was meet and proper therefore, that Jesus should 
put the emphasis of his Verily on the importance of 
Faith. At the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration 



134 The Verilies of Jesus 

the disciples were put to shame because they were 
unable to heal a demoniac boy. The Lord came 
down into their midst, his face shining, and looking 
upon his disciples he said, " O faithless and perverse 
generation, how long shall I bear with you ? " Then 
he restored the lad ; and afterwards when the disci- 
ples asked him, " Why could not we cast it out ? " 
he answered, " Because of your little faith." And as 
they continued their journey, he said " Verily I say 
unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, 
ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to 
yonder place ; and it shall remove! 1 A grain of mus- 
tard seed was the symbol of littleness, but the mus- 
tard seed had in it the power of life. The lifting of a 
mountain was the symbol of impossibility, but all 
things are possible to him who believes. This is not 
rhetoric ; not hyperbole ; it is truth. If our faith were 
perfect, it would always be buttressed by the omnipo- 
tence of God. 

A little living faith has in it the potency of vast 
achievement ; but thrice blessed is the possessor of 
great faith. Such was the centurion of Capernaum. 
(Matt. viii. 10.) On hearing that Jesus was coming to 
town he went to meet him ; and this colloquy ensued : 

The Centurion : " Lord, my servant lieth in the 
house sick of the palsy, grievously tormented." (Not 
a word of entreaty. He knew about Jesus evidently, 
and believed in him so far as to take his power and 
goodness for granted.) 



Faith 135 



Jesus: "I will come and heal him." (No hesita- 
tion. He instantly honors the faith of this man.) 

The Centurion : " Lord, I am not worthy that thou 
shouldst come under my roof ; but only say the word, 
and my servant shall be healed." (Faith in " absent 
treatment." He believed in the omnipresence of Jesus 
as well as in his omnipotence. But let him continue :) 
" For I also am a man under authority, having under 
myself soldiers : and I say to this one, Go, and he 
goeth ; and to another, Come, and he cometh ; and 
to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it." (Showing 
that his faith was rational, resting on the argument 
known as a fortiori, that is, from the less to the 
greater.) 

Jesus : (to his disciples) " Verily ', I have not found 
so great faith, no, not in Israel /" (Then to the Cen- 
turion.) " Go thy way ; as thou hast believed, so be 
it done unto thee." 

This was great faith for many reasons : ( 1 ) It was 
in an unexpected quarter. The Gentiles knew little 
about Jesus. (2) It was in spite of other adverse cir- 
cumstances. The man was a soldier, exposed to the 
irreligious dangers of a rough, cruel life. (3) It was 
an unselfish faith, not in his own behalf but in that of 
a humble slave. (4) It was a reasonable faith, founded 
on a strong, analogical argument. (5) It was a bold, 
expectant, persistent faith. (6) It took hold on Jesus as 
the mighty Son of God. (7) It was fruitful in results : 
" And his servant was healed in the self-same hour." 



136 The Verilies of Jesus 

What is the conclusion of the whole matter ? " Only 
believe ! " We enter the kingdom by faith. We walk 
by faith. The just shall live by faith. All things are 
possible to him that believeth. " He came unto his 
own, and they that were his own received him not. 
But as many as received him, to them gave he the 
right to become children of God, even to them that 
believe on his name ; who were born, not of blood, nor 
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
God." 



XXI. 

THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, If ye shall ask anything of the Fa- 
ther, he will give it you in my name. John xvi. 23. 

At one of our military posts on the frontier, an old 
Indian was often found, hungry and in rags and tatters, 
begging of the soldiers a little to keep soul and body 
together. And they were used to his approaches, for 
he had been coming year after year in that way. At 
length one felt moved to inquire what it was that hung 
from an old ribbon about the Indian's neck. A locket 
was suspended there ; and when he opened the locket, 
there fell out a bit of parchment ; that parchment was 
a Revolutionary pension bearing the signature of 
George Washington, the Commander-in-Chief of the 
American Army, which entitled him to a comfortable 
competence during all the remainder of his days. And 
he had not known it ! 

Here is a promise for Christian people : Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, If ye shall ask anything of the 
Father, he will give it you in my name." 

In this Verily we have a draft on the bank of the 

137 



138 The Verifies of Jesus 

Kingdom, signed by the King himself, with the amount 
left blank for us to fill in, and absolutely no limitations 
or conditions affixed to it. Have we taken advantage 
of it ? If we had, we should not be going about mourn- 
ing, " Oh, my leanness ! my leanness ! " God intends 
us to be strong and enriched by his grace, with enough 
of everything that is needful in order to the satisfaction 
of our souls to the uttermost. " Ye shall ask what ye 
will, and it shall be done unto you." 

All prayer is answered ; all prayer, mind you, of- 
fered in the filial spirit — for nothing else is prayer. The 
true prayer is that which goes up from the heart of 
God's child to the throne of heavenly grace ; which 
begins with " Our Father," and ends with " For Jesus' 
sake." That gets hold upon the strength of God, 
and nothing is impossible to it. So our proposition 
is the boundless prayer of faith ; absolutely, literally, 
the boundless prayer of faith. It rests on three 
boundless facts. Here they are : 

The first is the boundless power of God. He has 
infinite resources at his command. Why should not 
he give us whatsoever we ask ? Do you feel the hand 
of death gripping at your heart-strings ? Has some 
mortal malady taken hold upon you ? And has the 
physician said, " Nothing can be done ? " I believe 
in the faith cure : not in the professional charlatanry 
using that phrase ; but in the power of the prayer of 
faith to do precisely what it did when J esus went along 
the highways in the Holy Land. " If I do but touch 



The Prayer of Faith 139 

his garment, I shall be made whole." It was the 
touch of absolute faith that got hold of the hem of his 
garment, when virtue went out of him. 

Are you in distress respecting your temporal estate ? 
Oh, the cattle on a thousand hills are his, and all the 
gold and silver that lie buried in the deep bosom of 
the everlasting mountains, — they are all his. What 
an easy matter it is for God to relieve us ! 

Do you want to grow in grace toward the full stat- 
ure of the manhood of Christ ? He encourages that 
desire, and is ready at the first impulse of your heart 
to grant it. 

Are you praying for a friend ? Pray on ! God 
loves an unselfish prayer. He can reach out any- 
where to save a soul. How easy it is for him ! If one 
of my dear ones was over yonder struggling in the water 
for life, and you were near by, and could reach out a 
hand, and I should call to you, " Oh, save him ! " 
would you hesitate ? Why shall God hesitate when I 
plead for the deliverance of my beloved from spiritual 
and eternal death ? 

Do you say, " True, but his laws stand in the way ? " 
Can a watchmaker adjust the machinery of a chro- 
nometer and turn the hands backward, if he will ; and 
shall not God be able to manage the machinery of the 
universe ? The laws of the universe are God's laws. 
The universe is his chronometer. " Sun, stand thou 
still upon Gibeon ! and thou, Moon, in the valley of 
Aijalon ! " There was a man named Joshua praying 



140 The Verilies of Jesus 

down yonder, and God moved through the laws of the 
universe, and answered him. 

And then, this boundless prayer of faith rests on a 
second fact, the boundless goodness of God. He is 
able ; is he willing ? His name is love. Oh, the length, 
and the breadth, and the depth, and the height of it ! 

" There's a wideness in God's mercy 
Like the wideness of the sea." 

His promise, also, is given. " Ask and it shall be 
given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall 
be opened unto you." There is not an "if " there ; not 
a "perhaps"; nor "it may be so." "It shall be 
opened unto you." And, as if he thought some of us 
might question his sincerity in making so vast a prom- 
ise, he immediately repeats it in this wise : " For every- 
one that asketh receiveth ; and he that seeketh findeth ; 
and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." 

Besides, we have an argument back of that promise 
— a great argument, a fortiori, from the less to the 
greater — so that we may not misunderstand or ques- 
tion it. " And, of which of you that is a father shall his 
son ask a loaf, and he give him a stone ? or a fish, and 
he for a fish give him a serpent ? or if he shall ask an 
egg, will he give him a scorpion ? If ye then, being 
evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, 
how much more shall your heavenly Father give good 
things to them that ask him." 

And then, in addition to all that, his name, his prom- 
ise, his argument, he adds the tremendous earnest 



The Prayer of Faith 141 

which we have in Jesus Christ, when he says, "He 
that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up 
for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give 
us all things ? " He bared his heart, took the very 
heart of his love out of his bosom, and cast it down 
upon this guilty world to save it. Now, " shall he not 
with him also freely give us all things ? " 

It is nothing for him to give. He delights to give. 
It is the joy of the Divine life to be giving all the 
while. The most delightsome day in the life of the 
Empress Josephine, as she wrote in one of her letters, 
was when coming through the Alps with her husband, 
she was left for a little while to rest in an humble cot- 
tage. She saw that the eyes of the lone woman there 
were stained with tears and asked her trouble. The 
woman said it was poverty. " How much, " asked Jose- 
phine, " would relieve it ? " " Oh," she said, " there is 
no relieving it ; it would require four hundred francs to 
save our little vineyard and our goats." Josephine 
counted out of her purse the four hundred francs into 
the woman's lap ; and she gathered them together, and 
fell down and kissed her feet. And that was the hap- 
piest day in that poor empress's life. But all God's 
life is filled with days like that. His name is Love. 
He delights to hear our prayer, to answer it, to relieve 
and to enrich us. 

This boundless prayer of faith rests upon yet a 
third fact, to wit, God's boundless wisdom. He knows 
precisely what I need, and for that reason I am em- 



142 The Verilies of Jesus 

boldened to ask. I would not dare to ask if he were 
no wiser than myself. I would not dare to kneel down 
and ask for a temporal gift that might be to my moral 
and eternal ruin. I cannot see beyond my finger 
tips, but I can trust him. My Father knows ; knows 
what is best for me. " But if he knows before the 
asking what I need, why should I make a prayer at 
all ? " That is the word of an objector who has never 
learned God's love in Jesus Christ. It is enough for 
us that he bids us keep up the constant current of 
communication between our hearts and himself. 
" Ask, and it shall be given you." 

Ask largely. The prayer of faith knows no limit. 
Be not afraid. Your large request honors every attri- 
bute of God. In one of the Psalms it is written, " Open 
thy mouth wide and I will fill it." I wonder if the 
figure came from David's life among the hills, where, 
watching from the cliffs, he saw the fledglings in the 
eagle's nest, saw them, as the mother bird came back 
with some rich morsel, open their bills and wait ? Per- 
haps that suggested to him our helplessness, and 
God's desire to honor our requests?" Open your 
mouth wide and he will fill it. 

Ask confidently. Be assured that he will answer 
you. For you are a child of God. The filial spirit is 
the only condition that is affixed to prayer. It is the 
only prerequisite, and includes all other conditions 
that affect our approach to the mercy seat. Pray as 
the son or daughter of the loving God, that is, being 



The Prayer of Faith 143 

mindful of his superior wisdom. You may ask a stone ; 
he will not give it, but he will give you bread. Will 
you then say, " He did not answer me ? " You may 
in lack of wisdom, ask a scorpion ; he will not give 
you that, but he will honor your prayer, and give 
you a fish. Will you still say, " He did not answer 
me ? " 

The Lord Jesus once, in the weakest hour of his 
earthly life, when all his flesh was crying out against 
the approaching anguish of death, made the prayer of 
a real man. (And God wants us to pour out our 
whole soul before him. Better make a wrong prayer 
than no prayer at all.) In that awful hour he implored, 
" My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from 
me." But, as the light of the great redemption dawned 
upon his soul and he saw its necessity, he went on to 
say, " Oh, my Father, Thy will be done!" and his 
prayer was answered. 

The widow of a minister, long ago, came to Elijah's 
house and wept out her sorrow, saying " My creditors 
have come, and they require my two sons as a pledge. 
They are all that I have. My husband is dead. You 
knew him — you knew his devotion to God ; and I am 
left alone with these two lads." And the prophet 
said, " Go back to thy home. What hast thou ? " 
" Nothing." " Nothing ? " " No ; only a pot of oil ; 
nothing else is left." " Go back to thy house, take 
thy two lads, and make ready the pot of oil ; then bor- 
row vessels. Borrow of all thy neighbors round about. 



144 The Verilies of Jesus 

Borrow vessels not a few, remember ; and enter into a 
room with thy lads, shut to the door, and pour out 
oil ! " And she did so ; she filled the first vessel, and 
the supply was not gone. " Bring me another vessel," 
said she to the lads ; and they brought another and 
she filled it ; still the oil was not stayed. Another, 
and another, — vessels not a few ; all that they had. 
"Bring me yet another!" And one said, " Mother, 
there is not another vessel here;" and then the oil 
was stayed. 

There is a full supply in God's bounty. What limits 
it? Nothing but faith. God's wealth is infinite. The 
oil flows on forever, but the vessels give out. O for 
more faith ! O for a larger faith — a faith that shall 
honor the infinite love of the infinite God — a faith 
that shall rest absolutely on his unbounded power, 
his unbounded goodness, his unbounded wisdom, and 
shall believe his Word : " If ye abide in me, and my 
words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall 
be done unto you ! " 



XXII. 
BINDING AND LOOSING. 

Verily I say unto you, What things soever ye shall bind on earth 
shall be bound in heaven ; and what things soever ye shall loose on 
earth shall be loosed in heaven. Matt, xviii. 18. 

Here is a great truth — a truth which has given rise 
to endless controversy. In the opinion of some, the 
words of Jesus on this occasion gave to Peter and his 
apostolic associates and successors a roving commission 
to take general charge of divine affairs. The destinies 
of the race were placed in their hands. It is for them 
to save or damn at will. God, having devised the plan 
of redemption and carried it out at an infinite expend- 
iture on Calvary, was then pleased to turn over the 
whole matter to human hands. 

I do not believe it. There is something wrong with 
such an exposition of Scripture. 

The revolutionary tribunal of 1 794 in France had 
power to arrest without complaint, try without jury, 
and convict without witnesses ; in consequence of such 
arbitrary exercise of power, no less than fourteen hun- 
dred victims died by the guillotine between the 10th 

J 145 



146 The Verilies of Jesus 

of June and the 27th of July in that awful year. The 
life of the nation was at the absolute disposal of Robes- 
pierre and his four confreres. The world stands aghast 
at such a concentration of power in the hands of mortal 
men. But this is nothing, a mere bagatelle, in com- 
parison with the power which is said to have been com- 
mitted to the hands of Peter and his associates ; for 
this had to do not merely with the lives and estates of 
men, but with their eternal destiny ! 

The disciples did not so understand their commis- 
sion. Nor did Peter himself so understand it. The 
nearest to the exercise of any such authority was in 
the case of the Simon Magus, who had played the 
hypocrite during a great revival at Samaria, and had 
offered money in return for the charismata or special 
gifts of the Spirit of God. Then Peter said, " Thy 
money perish with thee." And the man was filled 
with sudden remorse. Now was Peter's chance. 
What did he say ? " Absolvo te ! " Oh, no : " Repent 
and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thy heart 
may be forgiven thee." 

Contrast that with the thing that happened at Ca- 
nossa when Henry II, who had been deposed from his 
royal office, came over the Alps to entreat for papal 
absolution. He presented himself at the gate of Greg- 
ory VII, and made his humble petition. He was 
ordered to remain at the gate and abstain from food ; 
he was further ordered to strip himself of the royal 
purple and put on hair-cloth. At the end of three 



Binding and Loosing 147 

weary days of penance, he was required to go into the 
presence of Pope Gregory and kiss his feet. Then 
this Vicar of God was pleased to say, " Absolvo te." 
Can it for a moment be believed that God has abdi- 
cated his prerogative in this way ? Shall we not rather 
say that this papal assumption is a mere playing with 
holy things — a grim and blasphemous farce ? 

The claim of the Romish Church to the power of 
plenary absolution, with its accessories, such as the 
confessional, the indulgence, the anathema, extreme 
unction, the deliverance of souls from purgatory, rests 
upon a false interpretation of three passages of Holy 
Writ. 

The first is in Matthew xvi. 13 ; where the keys 
were committed to Peter, that he might throw open the 
doors of the visible church to the Gentile world. This 
he did on the day of Pentecost, when, in the presence 
of a great assemblage, not of Jews only, but of Jews 
and Greeks, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, dwellers in 
Mesopotamia, and representatives from every portion 
of the earth, he said, " Repent ye and be baptized 
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the 
remission of your sins. For to you is the promise, 
and to your children, and to all them that are afar off, 
even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto 
him." 

The second Scripture referred to is in John xx. 
19-23, where our Lord said to his apostles, " Receive ye 
the Holy Spirit : whose soever sins ye forgive, they 



148 The Verilies of Jesus 

are forgiven unto them ; and whose soever sins ye re- 
tain, they are retained." Bear in mind the circum- 
stances under which these words were spoken. His dis- 
ciples were assembled in the upper chamber with closed 
doors after his resurrection, when he suddenly ap- 
peared among them, saying, " Peace be unto you." 
He then added, " As the Father hath sent me, even 
so send I you." What for ? The Father had sent 
him into the world to deliver the world from sin, as 
Jesus said in the synagogue at Nazareth when he 
opened the Scriptures and read : " The Spirit of the 
Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach 
good tidings to the poor : he hath sent me to proclaim 
release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the 
blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to 
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord ; " and con- 
tinued, " To-day hath this Scripture been fulfilled in 
your ears." As he was sent to proclaim deliverance 
by the power of the great sacrifice on Golgotha, so 
are these sent to point the nations toward the cross. 
Here is the only absolution ; absolution by faith in 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And having 
thus spoken of their errand, he breathed on his disci- 
ples and said, " Receive ye the Holy Spirit." Here 
was their qualification for the great work of evangel- 
ization. And then came the words, " Whose soever 
sins ye forgive, they shall be forgiven ; and whose 
soever sins ye retain, they shall be retained." The 
word of every believer, who announces absolution in 



Binding and Loosing 149 

Jesus Christ, is ratified in heaven. The humblest of 
all Christians is commissioned to go, saying, " He 
that believeth on the Son hath eternal life ; but he 
that obeyeth not the son, shall not see life, but the 
wrath of God abideth on him." That is, his sin 
shall be remitted or retained just as he accepts or re- 
jects the proffer of mercy in the crucified son of God. 

The third Scripture referred to is in Matt, xviii. 
15-18. "If thy brother sin against thee, go, show 
him his fault between thee and him alone : if he hear 
thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he hear 
thee not, take with thee one or two more, that at the 
mouth of two witnesses or three every word may be 
established. And if he refuse to hear them, tell it 
unto the church : and if he refuse to hear the church 
also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the pub- 
lican. Verily I say unto you, What things soever ye 
shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and 
what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be 
loosed in heaven" 

The power of binding and loosing, which had al- 
ready been conferred upon Peter in connection with 
the power of the keys, is here conferred upon the 
apostolic circle. And inasmuch as this commission 
was granted in immediate connection with the ques- 
tion of trespass within the Church, it is obvious that it 
refers to Church government. It is for the appointed 
officers of the church to determine what rules shall 
prevail. This is the power of binding and loosing as 



150 The Verilies of Jesus 

it was understood in the Jewish Church ; as when it 
was said, " Shammai bindeth and Hillel looseth ; " or 
as Josephus says, with reference to certain ethical 
rules, " The Pharisees have power to bind and loose at 
will." The commission which was thus granted to 
the apostolic circle involved a triple function : 

(1) The formulating of terms of admission to the 
Church. It is clear that there must be some author- 
ity to make doctrinal and ethical formularies which shall 
serve as conditions of church membership. And upon 
whom could this power be so appropriately conferred 
as upon that little circle which was the nucleus of 
the visible Church and constituted its formal govern- 
ment. 

(2) The maintenance of order within the Church. 
This is done by the laying down of certain rules of 
right belief and conduct. This is properly called, 
"binding and loosing." The Council at Jerusalem 
was called to settle the question as to what should be re- 
quired of the Gentile Christians with respect to observ- 
ances which the Jewish Christians regarded as obliga- 
tory. Paul and Peter having discussed that question, 
James declared the judgment of the court, which was 
to this effect : that on the one hand the Gentile con- 
verts should abstain from pollutions of idols, from forni- 
cation, things strangled and blood ; but that on the other 
hand, the yoke of Jewish bondage should be no further 
placed upon them. Here was a case in which the 
officers of the Church formally exercised the power of 



Binding and Loosing 151 

binding and loosing, and that same power rests in 
our ecclesiastical judicatories at this day. 

(3) The power to administer discipline. This, also, 
is necessary for the maintenance of order. A certain 
man in the Corinthian Church was accused of a name- 
less crime. He was probably of good social position, 
and his offense was winked at. Paul, however, en- 
joined upon the Corinthian Church to deal summarily 
with him ; he exhorted them to meet " in the name 
of the Lord Jesus Christ," and bind this evil doer 
and deliver him over to Satan in the hope of his rec- 
lamation or for the destruction of the flesh. Here 
was a clear case of judicial binding. It was what we 
call suspension or excommunication. The probability 
is that there ought to be a more frequent exercise of 
this power in the Church. A few years ago a man 
committed suicide in St. Paul's in London, and im- 
mediately it was announced that there would be a 
formal purging and reconsecration of the Church. 
But there are worse stains then the blood of a suicide 
in many of our churches, of which our ecclesiastical 
dignities should take knowledge ; for the Church is 
as a city set upon a hill whose light cannot be hid. 

It is obvious that neither in this nor in the former 
passages is there any reference to what is called judi- 
cial or plenary absolution. That power remains in 
divine hands ; for who can forgive sins but God alone ? 
The wrong view of this commission is illustrated in the 
claims of the monk Tetzel who set up his booth at 



152 The Verilies of Jesus 

Juterbok and announced that he was prepared to grant 
indulgences. The most heinous of crimes could be 
shielded from punishment by the payment of a stipu- 
lated number of florins. He proposed, also, to deliver 
souls from purgatory for a consideration. Over the 
chest, prepared for the receiving of the coins, was writ- 
ten this legend : 

"Soon as the coin within this chest doth ring, 
The soul shall straightway into heaven spring." 

How blasphemous ! And how puerile ! What a pre- 
posterous interpretation of the Master's words ! And 
from a similar perversion have arisen all the historic 
crimes of the confessional and the anathema. The 
whole race of Huguenots was placed under the ban ; 
cursed in soul, body and estate ; doomed to death tem- 
poral and eternal. The tolling of the bells of St. Bar- 
tholomew's marked the climax of this frightful misin- 
terpretation of the teaching of Jesus. 



XXIII. 
MUTUAL SERVICE. 

Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall 
find watching : verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and 
make them sit down to meat, and shall come and serve them. 

Luke xii. 37. 
Verily, verily, I say unto you, A servant is not greater than his 
Lord ; neither one that is sent greater than he that sent him. 

John xiii. 16. 

We have two strikingly contrasted pictures in John 
xiii. 1— 1 7 and Luke xii. 31-40. One represents a 
scene in the upper room in Jerusalem, where Jesus, 
girt with a towel and basin in hand, is washing his dis- 
ciples' feet. The other represents the great Supper 
in the Kingdom, where he, no longer clad in peasant's 
garb but arrayed in kingly apparel, seats his redeemed 
guests at table and " cometh forth and serveth them." 
The fact emphasized is the Dignity of Service. 

It is a mistake to think of Christ's extreme kindness 
to sinners as an evidence of demeaning condescension ; 
on the contrary it was but an illustration of that true 
greatness which finds its highest expression in the say- 
ing, " God is love." 

153 



154 The Verilies of Jesus 

To regard service as humiliating is a distinctly 
human conception. God is the Great Servant and he 
is, by that very token, King over all and blessed for- 
ever. In this connection we recall Milton's definition 
of humility, " That lofty lowliness of mind which is 
exalted by its own humiliation." 

It is recorded that on their way to the upper room 
the disciples had disputed as to which should be 
greatest among them. They were anticipating the 
establishment of an earthly kingdom and their hearts 
were filled with selfish and envious thoughts of tem- 
poral emolument. This was what led to the foot-wash- 
ing ; and what a mighty, persuasive, convincing demon- 
stration of the greatness of service it was ! Then came 
the application, with the double emphasis, Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, A servant is not greater than 
his Lord, neither one that is sent greater than he that sent 
him." (John xiii. 16.) Bow your heads, all followers 
of Christ. Lower ! Lower ! He bowed to service and 
so must ye, if ye would sit together with him on his 
throne ; for he that humbleth himself shall be exalted 
and he that exalteth himself shall be abased. 

The other picture, the serving of Christ at the 
heavenly table, was suggested by the impertinent re- 
quest of a young man : " Teacher, bid my brother di- 
vide the inheritance with me." Of course the Lord 
refused. Why should he be "a judge or a divider" 
in such matters ? This selfishness is ever breaking in 
upon the larger considerations of life. Give, give, give ! 



Mutual Service 155 

"Bid my brother divide!" Divide what? A little 
yellow dust that is bound to sift through stiff fingers 
at last. No, no, said Jesus, this is not the true view 
of living. Living is not claiming one's own but divid- 
ing with others ; not standing on rights but glorying 
in privileges ; not mastery but ministry ; not getting 
but giving ; not striving but serving. Let the mind 
that was and is forever in Christ Jesus be also in us. 
" Verily I say unto, that he shall gird himself ] and make 
his servants sit down to meat^ and will come and serve 
them!' (Luke xii. 37.) 

It would appear from these two pictures of Jesus 
that he is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and for 
ever. The human nature which he assumed in the 
incarnation was not laid aside when he ascended into 
heaven. John saw him walking in the midst of the 
golden candlesticks and was so overawed that he 
"fell at his feet as one dead;" but Jesus reassured 
him, saying, " I am the Living one ; and I was dead, 
and behold, I am alive for evermore" ; that is, he was 
the same Christ on whose bosom John had leaned in 
the upper room. And this thought is emphasized in 
the two pictures before us. The Christ who showed 
by the foot-washing that he had come into the world 
" not to be ministered unto but to minister," still serves 
his disciples as they sit at meat in his heavenly king- 
dom. Thus his humiliation, so-called, is the perpetual 
token of his glory. 

If so, it follows that our Christlikeness is measured 



156 The Verilies of Jesus 

by our growth in this spirit of ministry. He has set 
us an example, that we should do unto one another as 
he has done unto us, and as he is for ever doing unto 
them that love him. 

This is not an easy lesson to learn. The natural 
heart is selfish. It is loath to minister, insisting rather 
on being ministered unto. We who profess to follow 
Christ are often more concerned about our own sal- 
vation than in saving others. We love to sing, 

" When I can read my title clear 
To mansions in the skies, 
I'll bid farewell to every fear 
And wipe my weeping eyes." 

Yet the getting of a" title clear " is only the begin- 
ning of the Christian life. All the rest is service ; that 
is, the wiping of other weeping eyes. 

We are much troubled about " the deepening of the 
spiritual life ; " forgetting that the spiritual life is not 
deepened by a selfish dead-lift, so much as by follow- 
ing Christ in doing good, as we have opportunity, unto 
all men. 

The joy of heaven is service. We are not to think 
of the angels as employing themselves chiefly in play- 
ing harps and singing hymns. " Are they not all min- 
istering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake of 
them that shall inherit salvation ? " Is there not joy 
in heaven among the angels of God over every sinner 
returning from the error of his ways ? 



Mutual Service 157 

" Jehovah's charioteers surround ; 
The ministerial choir 
Encamp where'er his heirs are found 
And form our wall of fire : 
Ten thousand offices unseen 
For us they gladly do, 
Deliver in the lion's den 
And safe escort us through." 

If, then, we are to enter into the goodly fellowship 
of angels and saints triumphant, it behooves us to be 
faithful in our apprenticeship in service here and now. 
Our Lord himself, in taking this attitude of service, 
strikes the keynote of the Christian life. If, girt with 
omnipotence and canopied in glory, he deigns to serve 
his people, we shall best grow into his likeness not by 
mere sentimentalizing about sanctification but by doing 
for each other as he is continually doing for us. 



XXIV. 
HIS KIND FORESIGHT.. 

Verily I say unto you, One of you shall betray me, even he that 
eateth with me. Mark xiv. 18. 

Verily I say unto thee, that thou to-day, even this night, before the 
cock crow twice, shalt deny me thrice. Mark xiv. 30. 

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou gird- 
edst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest ; but when thou 
shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall 
gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. John xxi. 18. 

The all-embracing love of Jesus is manifest in his 
warnings, invitations and prayers in behalf of all sorts 
and conditions of men. What a wonderful thing it 
was that, amid the exquisite tortures of the cross, he 
should plead for his murderers, " Father, forgive them, 
for they know not what they do ! " Yet this was of 
a piece with his entire life and character. 

On the night before his crucifixion he showed his 
profound interest in the welfare of Judas. He knew 
what was in the traitor's heart and, moved, with a desire 
to forewarn and admonish him, he said in his hearing 
before the assembled company, Verily I say unto you, 
One of you shall betray me, even he that eateth with me." 

i 5 8 



His Kind Foresight 159 

(Mark xiv. 1 8.) The disciples were prof oundly moved by 
his words ; and they all, Judas among them, began to 
inquire, " Is it I ? " How deep and irremediable must 
have been the disloyalty of this man ! Warned on 
the brink of the abyss, he made no pause. Despite 
the faithful admonition of One who knew his inmost 
heart and foresaw his frightful doom, he plunged head- 
long on the bosses of the shield of God. 

The taste of the sacramental wine and bread was 
on his lips, when he went out of the upper chamber 
and betook himself to the Hall of Caiaphas. There 
he bargained with the rulers to betray his Lord for 
thirty pieces of silver. They were eager to receive 
him. This was the very chance for which they had 
waited long. 

" When," they asked him, " wilt thou deliver him 
into our hands ? " 

" This very night." 

" And where ? " 

" He is on his way, at this moment, to the garden 
of the oil-press, on the slope of Olivet. I know the 
place well. He is accustomed to resort thither for 
meditation and prayer. I will lead you." 

They set forth, guards, rabbis, and a mob with 
swords and staves and lanterns. The traitor was in 
front. He led them at a quick pace down the path to 
the Kidron and up along the slope of the opposite hill. 
They entered the gate of the garden. There Judas 
turned and said, "Whomsoever I shall kiss, that 



160 The Verilies of Jesus 

is he ; take him." So they passed on until they 
came to the grove of the oil-press. In the dim light 
of the moon they saw him yonder, and Judas, rushing 
headlong to his ruin, drew near and threw his arms 
about him. " Hail, Master ! " he cried, and kissed him. 
The word here used is that of a lover and a maid — he 
kissed him eagerly, again and again. In that kiss, his 
crime reached its consummation. It marked a sin 
against light, a sin against warning. It was treachery, 
it was lese majestS, it was guilt of the deepest, dark- 
est dye. 

We have reason to believe that if Judas Iscariot, at 
any moment before his death, had sought God's mercy 
he would have found it. His sin was not beyond par- 
don. God is a great Forgiver, willing to forgive unto 
the uttermost all who come unto him. It is never too 
late to mend. As I live, saith the Lord, I have no 
pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that all should 
turn and live. Turn ye ! turn ye ! for why will ye die ? 

On that same night, in the upper room, our Lord 
said to Peter, " Verily I say unto thee, that thou to-day, 
even this night, before the cock crow twice, shalt deny 
me thrice." (Mark xiv. 30.) As in the case of Judas, 
he took occasion of his foreknowledge to admonish this 
man of his approaching danger. The warning was in 
vain. True, Peter was not, like Judas, cherishing a 
deliberate purpose of evil ; but, being off his guard, the 
very danger of which he had been so kindly and sol- 
emnly forewarned overtook him. 



His Kind Foresight 161 

It is a sad story, and we search in vain for extenuat- 
ing circumstances. Bring it before any jury of tried 
men and true, and their verdict would be " Guilty," 
without a recommendation to mercy. The case is ag- 
gravated by the fact that Peter had probably a deeper 
insight than any of his companions into the personality 
of Jesus ; it was he who had witnessed the good con- 
fession, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God." He was one of the chosen three who were re- 
ceived into the inner place of the Lord's confidence. 
He had been with Jesus on the Mount of Transfigura- 
tion : had seen the homespun garments of the Naza- 
rene flutter aside, revealing his royal purple. In view 
of such considerations, plus this admonition, it would 
appear that the offense could scarcely have been worse. 
Being forewarned, he should have been forearmed ; 
and above all this, he knew that Christ was praying 
for him. (Luke xxii. 32.) 

His fall was due (1) to thoughtlessness. He was 
an impulsive man. (2) And to self-confidence. " Al- 
though all shall be offended," he said, " yet will 
not I." 

" Beware of Peter's word, 
Nor confidently say, 
' I never will deny my Lord,' 
But ' Grant I never may ! ' " 

(3) Also to the fact that in the hour of trial he " fol- 
lowed Jesus afar off." When he heard in the distance 
the outcries of the mob who were leading his Lord to 

K 



1 62 The Verilies of Jesus 

judgment, he went skulking in the rear. If we would 
be secure, let us follow Christ as a tourist follows his 
guide along the Alpine heights, roped to him, safe in 
his safety, falling only when he falls. (4) Also to 
his association with evil companions. He stood in the 
open court with the soldiers and warmed his hands at 
their fire. " He had," as a Scotch woman quaintly 
said, " nae business among the flunkeys." No more 
have we. We must indeed be in the world, but we 
need not be of it. (5) But back of all other reasons 
for Peter's fall was his arrant cowardice. He fell be- 
fore the sneer of a maidservant. O the poltroon, put 
to rout by a pointed finger ! Had it been a leveled 
spear, he might have braved it ; for, indeed, no weapon 
is fiercer than ridicule. We also blanch and tremble 
before it. 

But the story of Peter does not end with his down- 
fall. There is a glorious sequel. No sooner had he 
uttered the fateful words of denial than the cock crew ; 
and never did chanticleer carry such a message to 
the heart of man. Then Peter lifting up his eyes, 
saw Jesus yonder in the judgment-hall ; and the Lord 
turned and looked upon him. It was a look of re- 
proach and infinite tenderness. And Peter went out, 
and wept bitterly. Then came three days of shame 
and self-reproach. He wandered alone in his bitter 
sorrow. At night he awoke from troubled dreams to 
hear himself saying, " I never knew him ! " At length 
one came saying, " The Master is dead ; come to the 



His Kind Foresight 163 

upper room and weep with us." But he could not. 
" Leave me to my shame," he said. Then another 
reported, " Jesus is risen and hath sent a message to 
thee." But the nightmare of his sin was still upon 
him. 

One morning in the twilight he was with his com- 
panions in the fishing boat, when a lone figure was 
seen walking on the shore. They whispered among 
themselves, " It is the Lord." Peter could not wait. 
In a passion of repentant love he threw off his fisher's 
coat and sprang into the water ; and a moment later 
he stood dripping before his Lord. " Simon, son of 
John [alas, his old name !], lovest thou me ? " " Yea, 
Lord, thou knowest that I love thee." And again, 
" Simon, son of John, lovest thou me ? " " Yea, Lord, 
thou knowest that I love thee." Then a third time, 
" Simon, son of John, lovest thou me ? " And Peter 
said, " Lord, thou knowest all things — my sin, my 
shame, my remorse, my penitence — and thou knowest 
that I love thee ! " Thus he was restored to the 
apostolate. And from that time he never blushed to 
own his Lord. He earned his knighthood as the Man 
of Rock. He stood before kings, met persecution 
with a courageous front, became a familiar acquaint- 
ance of the scourge and prison damp, braved the terrors 
and weariness of missionary toil, and at length went 
through the gate of Rome to martyrdom. A moment 
later as he entered on his heavenly reward, we may 
believe that to the gracious word of welcome he 



164 The Verilies of Jesus 

replied, " Now, Lord, thou knowest that I love 
thee ! " 

The sin of Peter in denying Jesus was in many 
points akin with that of the traitor. He also was 
overwhelmed with remorse ; but his tears were min- 
gled with faith. He so believed in the pardoning 
grace of Jesus that he could not be driven to despair. 
He sought the presence of his Lord ; and this makes 
all the difference. The old monk Staupitz said to 
Luther, overwhelmed with shame, " The true re- 
pentance is that which drives the soul to God." 

The kind foresight of Jesus was manifest, also, in 
his words touching the manner of Peter's death. This 
was in his interview with his disciples referred to 
above : " Verily, verily I say unto thee, When thou 
wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst 
whither thou wouldest ; bitt when thou shalt be old, 
thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall 
gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest 
not." (John xxi. 18.) 

It was a picturesque scene : The sun was rising 
over the trans-Jordanic heights, tinging the snowy 
crown of Hermon with a red glory, while a golden 
mist rose slowly from the western sea. In the midst 
of the group stood Jesus, and near by Peter, in drip- 
ping garments, his face now fallen on his breast. He 
had forgotten for the moment, that when he last saw 
Jesus he had thrice denied him : now the bitter recol- 
lection overwhelms him. Thrice the Master asks, 



His Kind Foresight 165 

" Simon, son of John, lovest thou me ? " Never was 
heedless lad more embarrassed by stern catechist than 
this bold fisherman : yet with downcast eyes he answers 
thrice, " Thou knowest that I love thee." And with vast 
compassion his Lord reopens to him the three doors 
of the apostolic office, saying " Feed my sheep." Then 
the grave announcement falls from his lips : " When 
thou art old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and 
another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou 
wouldst not." It was a prophecy of martyrdom. Did 
Peter blanche or tremble when the cold shadow fell 
over him ? Nay ; this was what he had longed for : 
to be baptized with his Lord's crimson baptism, to 
drink of his bitter cup. Then Jesus added, " Follow 
me ! " He had said it twice before but never under 
such circumstances, nor with such grave significance. 
It was as if he said, " Come, Peter ; the servant is not 
greater than his Lord. Enter into the fellowship of 
my shame and agony. On to the cross ! On to the 
martyr's crown ! " 

Our Lord knows us through and through. He 
knows how we are living and how we are to die. And 
he is profoundly interested in our welfare every way. 
By the voice of his Spirit he is constantly warning and 
persuading us. He did what he could to save Judas. 
He stood by Peter to the very end, His love is round 
about us. " What more could he do for his vineyard 
that he hath not done in it ? " 



XXV. 

CHRIST AND THE BIBLE. 

Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot 
or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be 
accomplished. Matt. v. 18. 

Our Lord declares the Scriptures to be true. He 
does not scruple to call them " truth." He does not 
say that they contain, but that they are, the word of 
God. Thus in his sacerdotal prayer in behalf of his 
disciples he pleads, " Sanctify them in the truth : thy 
word is truth." A follower of Christ ought to be will- 
ing to follow him in his indorsement of the Scriptures 
no less than in faithful service. He affixed his seal to 
the story of the Deluge, saying, " As were the days of 
Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man : they 
were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in mar- 
riage, until the flood came and took them all away." 
He believed in the old story of the destruction of the 
Cities of the Plain by fire and brimstone from heaven, 
in the healing efficacy of the brazen serpent, in the 
turning of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt, and in Jonah 
in the whale's belly. He gave an explicit assent to 
those Old Testament " fables " which are so abhorrent 

166 



Christ and the Bible 167 

to many of the learned critics of these days. He was 
probably as well advised as most of our Biblical ex- 
egetes respecting the real facts bearing upon the ques- 
tion of inerrancy, and knowing all he did not hesitate 
to indorse the entire trustworthiness of the most vul- 
nerable portions of Holy Writ. 

At the outset of his ministry he went into the syn- 
agogue at Nazareth and opened the scroll at the place 
where it is written, " The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
me, because he anointed me to preach good tid- 
ings to the poor : he hath sent me to proclaim re- 
lease to the captives, and recovering of sight to the 
blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to 
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord ; " and having 
read this passage, he said to his audience, " To-day 
hath this Scripture been fulfilled in your ears." Dur- 
ing the three years that followed he hypothecated the 
truth of his teaching and the genuineness of his work 
in all particulars on the sanction of Holy Writ. And 
after his resurrection, while walking with certain of 
his disciples along the way to Emmaus, "beginning 
from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted 
to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning him- 
self." It would be interesting to know the substance 
of that expository sermon. We may be quite sure 
that he unfolded the meaning of ancient rites and 
symbols as well as of Messianic prediction in the 
light of the things which had recently happened at 
Jerusalem. We may be equally sure that he care- 



1 68 The Verilies of Jesus 

fully avoided any suggestion of the fact which has 
recently been discovered by a liberal Professor in one 
of our Evangelical Seminaries that " the great body 
of the Messianic prediction has not only never been 
fulfilled, but cannot now be fulfilled, for the reason 
that its own time has passed for ever." 

The words, " Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and 
eartJi pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise 
pass away from tJie law, till all things be accom- 
plished," are, if possible, of still clearer import. Ob- 
serve the manifold emphasis ; the " Verily," the " I 
say unto you," the " till heaven and earth pass," the 
"one jot or one tittle," the "in no wise," and the 
"all." It is difficult to see how he could have ex- 
pressed more forcibly his unreserved confidence in 
the absolute integrity of Holy Writ. He plants him- 
self, here, on its entire truth and trustworthiness, 
and hypothecates his character, his preaching, his 
work, his passion, his resurrection and his ultimate tri- 
umph upon it. 

It will be well, furthermore, to consider the strange 
silence of Jesus respecting all those alleged errors and 
discrepancies which so vex the souls of certain of our 
learned folk. Did he know that these blunders were 
to be found in the sacred pages ? How is it that he 
uttered no words against the Mosaic cosmogony ? 
How is it that he did not denounce those imprecatory 
Psalms which are " too horrible to be read " in some 
of our modern pulpits ? How it is that he did not expose 



Christ and the Bible 169 

the falsity of those prophecies concerning himself which 
have never been fulfilled and never can be because 
their time has gone by ? Surely it is not too much 
to suppose that Jesus was an honest man. He seems 
to have been a fervent hater of shams and impos- 
tures, lying frontlets and phylacteries, false traditions 
of the elders and deceptions of every sort. Is it possi- 
ble that his eyes were not so clear in this particular as 
those of our recent Biblical scholars ? Or was his 
soul not so sensitive with regard to those dreadful 
things in Scripture ? We are in a dilemma. Was he 
unscrupulous or merely ignorant ? Must we put the 
most severe limitations upon his knowledge, assuming 
that he knew no better than to let these errors pass 
unchallenged, or must we impugn his ingenuousness ? 
In either case we could scarcely receive him as our 
Saviour and spiritual guide. 

We profess to be Christians. This means not sim- 
ply that we trust in Jesus for our deliverance from the 
unquenchable fire, but that we follow him in all things. 
In every question of truth and conduct his decision 
must be supreme. His word makes an end of contro- 
versy for us. His Verily is our Court of Last Ap- 
peal. When, therefore, we have determined what he 
believed and taught about the Bible, that must con- 
clusively and finally determine our opinion of it. 



XXVI. 

HEAVEN. 

Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. 

Luke xxiii. 43. 

Verily I say unto you, I shall no more drink of the fruit of the 
vine, until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. 

Mark xiv. 25. 

Verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth over it more than over the ninety 
and nine which have not gone astray. Matt, xviii. 1 3. 

" To-day r 

The enemies of Jesus had nailed him to the cross ; 
but they could not rob him of his power to save. His 
hands, pierced and bleeding, had not lost their cunning. 
He reached them forth in that last hour and plucked 
a penitent reprobate from the quicksands of shame 
and despair, in which he was sinking fast, and set his 
feet upon the everlasting rock ! 

But you " do not believe in death-bed conversions." 
No more do I. A man is a coward who will burn out 
the candle of his life and fling the sooty remnant on 
the altar. A man is a coward and deserves no mercy 
who will spend his years in sordid toil and selfish 

170 



Heaven 171 



pleasure and expect to leap into heaven at the last, 
with the cry " God, have mercy ! " upon his lips. This 
is a dangerous venture. If I were you I would not 
try it. But God is sovereign and worketh when and 
where and how he will. Grace is free. Wesley never 
wrote a truer couplet than this, 

" Betwixt the saddle and the ground, 
Mercy sought, is mercy found." 

It has been wisely said that one record of a death-bed 
conversion is given in the Scriptures, so that none 
may ever despair ; but only one, so that none may 
ever presume. We may doubt all other death-bed 
conversions if it pleases us so, but as to this particular 
one there is no doubt whatever that the penitent 
thief was saved. We have the word of the Lord for 
it. 

And Jesus said, " Verily I say unto thee. To-day 
thou shalt be with me in Paradise!' (Luke xxiii. 43.) 
Blessed be God for that word " To-day " ! No pur- 
gatory then. No hundred years of penance to burn 
out the record of the mislived past, and then the open 
gates. And no "soul sleeping " — a million years of 
resting in unconsciousness to awake at the trumpet 
sound and sweep in with the great multitude. No. 
" To-day " with Christ in Paradise. In the morning 
he was led out from the Damascus gate wearing at 
his neck the titulum, " He dies a thief." No friends 
to pity him ; all say, " It served him right," and it did. 
But, perhaps, there was a home in Jerusalem filled 



172 The Verilies of Jesus 

with sorrow for him — where an old mother sat rocking 
to and fro, her face in her hands, lamenting, " Woe 
is me for my wayward son. He dies a felon's death." 
She dared not lift her face and look toward Golgotha, 
for there was the gallows-tree. Her heart was crushed 
with unspeakable shame, yet filled with love ; love 
maternal, love unconquerable, love which many waters 
cannot quench. But, O had she known ! The gar- 
ments of her woe would have been laid aside and joy 
would have brightened her dim eyes, had she heard 
the Master's words and known their meaning ; for 
Jesus went before to Paradise and stood at the gate of 
the garden to welcome this penitent and believing sin- 
ner, saying, " Enter, beloved ! " 

At the Feast. 

The Lord's Supper is a foretaste of heaven. As he 
sat at the table with his disciples he said, " Verily I 
say unto you, I shall no more drink of the fruit of the 
vine, until that day when I drink it new in the king- 
dom of God. (Mark xiv. 25.) Here, as in many 
other places he likens heaven to a feast, at which he 
shall preside and his people shall be the happy guests. 
Of course we are to know him there, better than we 
have known him here ; and this will be the very es- 
sence of our happiness. What would heaven be with- 
out him ? " The Lamb is the light thereof." 

But we are to know each other, also. This is im- 



Heaven 173 

plied in the suggestion of a feast. Did you ever sit 
at table with a company where you were not acquainted 
with anybody but your host ; and if so was it not a 
dismal affair ? And shall we so look forward to the 
marriage feast whereat we are to celebrate the nup- 
tials of the King's Son ? Of that festive occasion the 
Lord said, " They shall come from the east and from 
the west and the north and the south and sit down 
with Abraham and Isaac in the kingdom." If the 
inhabitants are to know those ancient worthies, why 
shall they not also recognize others who are nearer 
and dearer ? 

A devout man, on being asked if he expected to 
know his favorite sister in the after-world, said that he 
expected to be so continually occupied with the beauty 
of the Bright and Morning Star that she might remain 
for ages by her side and he not notice her. In that 
reply there was a vast amount of ignorance if not of pious 
affectation. Is there any incompatibility between our 
love for the great Father and our love for our kinsfolk 
and friends ? Is there any incongruity between the 
first and second of the great commandments ? A man 
may love the Lord with all his soul and yet love his 
human associates with a pure heart fervently. Nay, 
more, the love of God is perfected in us only when we 
thus love one another. Our sanctified kinships and 
friendships are as eternal as the Father's love. 

There is no Lethe between this world and the here- 
after. There can be none, else our identity would 



174 The Verilies of Jesus 

cease ; for memory is the nexus binding the here with 
the hereafter. We shall walk together in the green 
pastures of Canaan and review the joys and sorrows 
of our earthly life. We shall sit at the table with 
Christ and our loved ones. A Danish poet tells of a 
glorified spirit who was sent to bring the soul of a 
little girl to heaven. While winging his way with his 
precious charge, the child saw a rose-tree in his hand 
and asked the meaning of it. The angel replied that 
once upon a time there was a poor lad in the city they 
had left who lay for a long while dying. That rose-tree 
was the one solace of his loneliness ; it filled the sick 
chamber with its fragrance and spoke of the coming 
spring. And now, at his desire, the flower was to be 
transplanted to Paradise. Then the child looked up 
into the angel's face and asked : 

" ' How knowest thou this, bright power ? ' 
Then splendidly he smiled : 
' Should I not know my flower ? 
I was that sickly child. ' " 

Ay, we shall remember there. The old home, the 
tree by the doorway, the well-sweep, the path leading 
through the meadow, the far-away sound of the school- 
bell — we remember them here, and in glory they will 
still abide with us. 

The Joy of Heaven. 

The joy of the Lord is in the finding of the lost. 
This is " the fruit of the travail of his soul." He 



Heaven 175 

went forth to seek and to save, leaving the ninety and 
nine that he might answer the cry of the lost one on 
the mountains. And he sought until he found it. 

" Then all through the mountains thunder-riven, 
And up from the rocky steep, 
There rose a cry to the gates of heaven, 
Rejoice, I have found my sheep ! 
And the angels echoed around the throne 
Rejoice, for the Lord brings back his own ! " 

He sits on his high place in heaven, while the 
multitude throng in through the open gates and break 
into singing, " Worthy art thou, for thou hast redeemed 
us ! " and beholding in them the fruit of his travail 
he is satisfied. Is not this a joy worthy of the beloved 
Son ? Verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth over it more 
than over the ninety and nine which have not gone 
astray. (Matt, xviii. 13.) 

And the Lord will share his happiness with us. 
The celebration of the prodigal's return was a fore- 
gleam of heaven. The father called his neighbors to 
a feast. The lights were kindled and the table spread. 
There were sounds of music and dancing. All made 
merry together because the lost was found ; and in 
that joyous company none was happier than the re- 
turned prodigal. As the guests moved to the table 
he would have taken the lowest place ; but the seat 
of honor is given him. All doubts and misgivings are 
gone. The shoes of a freeman are on his feet and 
a ring of adoption on his hand. The father speaks, 



176 The Verilies of Jesus 

" Neighbors, rejoice with me ! This my son was lost 
and is found, he was dead and is alive again ! " This 
is heaven. The Host and his guests participate in a 
common joy. 

As Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress drew near 
to the Heavenly City, he saw the gates open to re- 
ceive others. " I looked in after them," he says, 
" and, behold, the city shone like the sun ; the streets 
also were paved with gold, and in them walked many 
who had crowns on their heads and palms in their 
hands and golden harps to sing praises withal. There 
were also some that had wings, and they answered 
one another without intermission, saying, ' Holy, holy, 
holy is the Lord ! ' And after that they shut up the 
gates ; which, when I had seen, I wished myself among 
them." If you also, my friend, wish to be among them, 
let the Lord carry you, as the shepherd carries the lost 
sheep on his shoulders, through the duties and respon- 
sibilities of life, up the steeps and over the rough places, 
through the gates into the home of God. 



XXVII. 
THE SECOND ADVENT. 

Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon 
another, that shall not be thrown down. Matt. xxiv. 2. 

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all 
these things be accomplished. Matt. xxiv. 34. 

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all 
things be accomplished. Luke xxi. 32. 

Verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through all the cities 
of Israel, till the Son of man be gone. Matt. x. 23. 

Verily I say unto you, There are some of them that stand here, 
who shall in no wise taste death, till they see the Son of man com- 
ing in his kingdom. Matt. xvi. 28. 

In the teaching of Jesus as to his final coming 
there is a strange confusion of terms ; strange, that 
is, to one who fails to consider that no prophecy is 
ever so definite as to dispense with the necessity of 
faith. The purpose of prophecy is not to gratify 
curiosity but to awaken expectancy and stimulate de- 
sire. To this end there must be concealment in the 
very process of revealing ; so that the soul, awaiting 
the denouement with eagerness, yet meets it with sur- 
prise, crying, " How clear ! And how could I ever 
have failed to perceive it ? " 

So it happens that the Biblical prophecies are fre- 
quently complex, two or more events being mingled 
L 177 



178 The Verilies of Jesus 

inextricably. In the Messianic Psalms, for example, 
there is oftentimes an immediate reference to David 
with a remoter one to " David's greater Son." The 
birth of Jesus was predicted in terms so minute and 
particular that we wonder how any could misunder- 
stand ; yet, prior to the incarnation, there was prob- 
ably not one person on earth who perceived the won- 
derful truth in its real significance. The reason is 
obvious : these prophecies were designedly involved, 
paradoxical and enigmatic, leaving room for faith. 

We should expect to find something of the same 
sort in the predictions of Christ as to his Second 
Coming. His so-called " parousia discourse," (Matt. 
xxiv. and xxv.) was addressed to his disciples in answer 
to three questions, namely, " When shall Jerusalem 
and the Temple be destroyed ? " " When shall the 
kingdom be established on earth ? " (signalized by 
" the end of the world," that is, of the present order 
of things) and " What shall be the sign of thy Com- 
ing ? " In the discourse referred to these events are 
commingled and blended in a designedly confusing 
way. The truth of each event is emphasized with a 
Verily ; but the complexity is such as to suggest 
that Christ intended us to pause far short of cer- 
tainty as to details, leaving the times and seasons 
with God. 

I. To us, who stand this side of the event, it is an 
easy matter to indicate and detach the references of 
Jesus as to the destruction of Jerusalem. Our pres- 



The Second Advent 179 

ent purpose has to do only with such of his proph- 
ecies as bear the emphatic seal of the Verily. " And 
Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on 
his way ; and his disciples came to him to show him 
the buildings of the temple. But he answered and 
said unto them, See ye not all these things ? Verily 
I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone 
upon another, that shall not be thrown down." (Matt, 
xxiv. 1, 2.) 

A little further on in the same discourse the refer- 
ence is made clearer still. " Now from the fig tree 
learn her parable : when her branch is now become 
tender, and putteth forth its leaves, ye know that the 
summer is nigh ; even so ye also, when ye see all 
these things, know ye that he is nigh, even at the 
doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall 
not pass away, till all these things be accomplished." 
(Matt. xxiv. 32-34.) 

The details of the historic siege and overthrow of 
Jerusalem are given with more particularity in Luke 
xxiv., where the climax of the prediction is reached 
again in the parable of the shaken fig tree : " And 
he spake to them a parable : Behold the fig tree, and 
all the trees : when they now shoot forth, ye see it and 
know of your ownselves that the summer is now nigh. 
Even so ye also, when ye see these things coming to 
pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh. 
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass 
away, till all things be accomplished." (Luke xxi. 



180 The Verilies of Jesus 

29-32.) The retributive aspect of this event is dwelt 
upon in Luke xi. 47-5 1 : " Woe unto you ! for ye 
build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers 
killed them. So ye are witnesses and consent unto 
the works of your fathers ; for they killed them, and 
ye build their tombs. Therefore also said the wisdom 
of God, I will send unto them prophets and apostles : 
and some of them they shall kill and persecute; that 
the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from 
the foundation of the world, may be required of this 
generation ; from the blood of Abel unto the blood of 
Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the 
sanctuary : yea, I say unto you, it shall be required of 
this generation." 

It is a true saying, Whatsoever a man soweth — aye, 
or a nation — that shall he also reap. The Jews who 
crucified Jesus cried with one accord " His blood be 
on us and on our children ! " God took them at their 
word. The bolt of justice fell when Jerusalem was 
overthrown and they were scattered to the four winds. 
Centuries have passed and they are still a stigmatized 
race. A people without a fatherland, a nation with- 
out a government, a church without a temple, exiles 
and wanderers, their history is vibrant with that aw- 
ful cry, " His blood be upon us ! " 

II. It is easy also to designate certain of the Verily 
predictions pointing to the coming of Christ's kingdom 
on earth. Two of these are as follows : " But when 
they persecute you in this city flee into the next ; for 



The Second Advent 181 

verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through 
the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be corne" 
(Matt. x. 23.) This was uttered in connection with 
the sending out of the Twelve. Here " the Coming 
of the Son of man " means obviously the beginning of 
the great campaign of evangelization. The outpour- 
ing of the Spirit at Pentecost, with its ingathering of 
thousands, was the first notable triumph of Christianity. 
It was the trumpet blast that gave the signal for the 
advance through the ages. It occurred before the 
Twelve had finished their itinerary of Palestine ; and 
it was the foregleam and prototype of spiritual victories 
which have attended the preaching of the gospel ever 
since and are destined to continue until the kingdom 
of Christ shall be universal. 

The other passage referred to is in Matt. xvi. 27-28 : 
" For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his 
Father with his angels ; and then shall he render to 
every man according to his deeds. Verily I say unto 
you, There are some of them that stand here, who shall 
in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man 
coming in his kingdom." Here again " the coming 
of the Son of man in his glory " has reference to a 
procession of events beginning within the lifetime of 
the apostles and having its consummation in the con- 
quest of the world, this giving the final signal for the 
appearing of the King, whose glory shall then cover 
the earth as the waters cover the sea. 

III. To these Verilies must be added one other noted 



1 82 The Verilies of Jesus 

prophetic utterance which bears obviously and immedi- 
ately on the final advent of Jesus. " O Jerusalem, Jeru- 
salem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that 
are sent unto her ! how often would I have gathered thy 
children together, even as a hen gathered her own brood 
under her wings, and ye would not ! Behold, your 
house is left unto you desolate and I say unto you, 
Ye shall not see me, until ye shall say, Blessed is he 
that cometh in the name of the Lord." (Luke xiii. 
34-35.)* Here is a reference to the historic welcome 
to the Messiah. (Psalm cxviii. 25-26.) 

But the Jews, of all nations, have been most reluctant 
to recognize Christ. The worst of the calamities that 
have befallen them is spiritual blindness. I was once 
greatly perplexed by a service which I attended in the 
great synagogue at Rotterdam. The place was 
thronged with worshippers. The lights were not 
burning except a candle here and there, just enough to 
make the darkness visible. The high priest chanted 
the service in a melancholy voice. I felt as if in a 
mummy crypt. What could this mean ? All at once 
the character of the service changed. The lights in the 
great chandeliers were kindled ; the worshippers pro- 
duced tapers, lighted them, held them aloft ; the priest 
had risen and was reciting in a gladsome voice, the men 
responding, " Hosanna ! hosanna ! " On inquiry 

* It will be observed that the Verily of this passage in the Author- 
ized Version does not appear in the Revision ; but as the passage is 
so closely and appropriately related to the matter in hand it is worthy 
of citation, particularly as it bears the emphasis of " I say unto you." 



The Second Advent 183 

afterwards I learned that this service was commemora- 
tive of the overthrow of Jerusalem and the captivity of 
its people. And the kindling of the lights meant that 
Messiah was to come. Oh, when will the hoodwink be 
taken from Israel's eyes ? When shall they see that 
Jesus is the Christ ? 

The rejoicings of Palm Sunday are set forth as an 
earnest of the universal gladness which is to prevail 
at the Second Coming of Christ. But Palm Sunday is 
only one chapter of the story, as Jesus said, " Now 
this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled which 
was spoken through the prophet saying." To find 
what this prophet said we must go back five hundred 
years to the rebuilding of the Temple. A caravan 
made up of five thousand of the flower of Israel had 
been permitted to return from Babylon. At once 
they set to work, animated by the most patriotic and 
religious motives, to rebuild the temple. They had 
received contributions of about half a million of dol- 
lars in free-will offerings for this purpose. In Ziph, 
the blossom month, the work began in earnest ; and 
it was continued for a period of some years despite 
many discouragements and the opposition of the sur- 
rounding tribes. Then their enthusiasm ceased ; the 
fires upon the altar died out ; the workmen longed to 
return to agricultural pursuit ; the fields lay fallow in 
their sight ; one by one they put aside the hammer 
and trowel and went forth to attend to their own af- 
fairs. The sanctuary was deserted ; its bare walls 



184 The Verilies of Jesus 

were open to the skies ; the winds from the heights 
of Moab swept through its unlinteled doors ; owls 
made their nests in its nooks and crannies ; foxes 
from the ravine of Hinnom crept in and out its Holy 
Place ; the outer precincts were filled with heaps of 
uncut stone and lumber. This was the condition of 
affairs when Zechariah came. He exhorted the men 
of Israel to return to their sacred task ; he sought to 
rekindle their ardor by reciting a series of glowing 
visions through which walked in divine majesty their 
Messianic King. The climax of his exhortation was 
reached in this prophecy : " Rejoice greatly, O daugh- 
ter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem ; behold, 
thy king cometh unto thee ; he is just and having sal- 
vation ; lowly, and riding upon an ass ; and his do- 
minion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River 
to the ends of the earth." (Zechariah ix. 9-10.) 

Now link that event with this triumphal entry which 
occurred A. D. 30. It is the darkest hour in the his- 
tory of Israel. The religion of the chosen people is 
much like the unfinished temple, and their govern- 
ment is trodden down by alien feet. The Man of 
Nazareth is on his way to Jerusalem. He has passed 
the night in Bethany, and at daybreak resumes his 
journey, staff in hand. His disciples are with him, 
and a company of pilgrims to the great .annual feast. 
Not far from Bethphage he rests for a season, and 
sends two of his disciples for the beast of burden which 
is to carry him into the city . In the meantime it is 



The Second Advent 185 

known in Jerusalem that Jesus of Nazareth is draw- 
ing near. The story of his preaching and miracles is 
on every lip. The people, encamped in leafy booths 
on the hillsides, see the caravan approaching on the 
heights overlooking the Kidron. They hear the 
shouting and commotion ; they know what it means. 
They stream up the road, tearing off branches of the 
palm-trees ; so the two companies meet ; those going 
before joining with those that follow after in the cry, 
" Hosanna ! Hosanna to the Son of David ! " They 
wave the palm branches, they cast their garments in 
the road before him, and so escort him over the ford 
of the Kidron and on through the city gates. The peo- 
ple on the roofs and in their doorways see the procession 
passing by ; traders and camel-drivers, and rabbis in 
robes embroidered with gold, all gaze with interest. 
Who is this ? It is the carpenter of Nazareth, who 
claims to be the Messiah of God. On toward the 
temple moves the strange procession, crying, "Hos- 
anna ! Hosanna ! Blessed is he that cometh in the 
name of the Lord ! " 

Now link that event with still another which is as 
yet behind the veil. It was seen by John the Evange- 
list before the Book was sealed ; for the triumphal 
advent was itself a mere prophecy of John's vision. 
In that vision he saw the moon covered with a bloody 
veil ; the stars fell as when a fig-tree is shaken of its 
untimely figs ; the heavens were rolled up like a scroll ; 
the earth was on fire ; the hour struck ; the spirits of 



1 86 The Verilies of Jesus 

the dead came forth ; angels and archangels crowded 
the expanse above. Armies ! Armies ! Armies ! 
Palms in their hand and shouts of victory ! Far as 
the eye can reach, angels and archangels and saints 
triumphant. Now the trumpet blast ! The heavens 
are opened and the Son of man appears, robed in light 
and glory, and crowned with a diadem of stars ; he 
lifts his hands in benediction, intercessory hands, 
marked with the scars of his mediatorial anguish. 
" Hosanna ! Hosanna ! to the Son of David ! Worthy 
art thou to receive honor and glory and dominion and 
power for ever and ever ! " The end has come ; the 
tabernacle of God is among men. The prophecies are 
ended. Close the book and seal it. Jesus of Nazareth 
is universal king ; his dominion is from sea to sea and 
from the river unto the ends of the earth. 

But when shall these things be ? " Take heed that 
no man lead you astray. And they shall say to you, 
Lo, there ! Lo, here ! go not away, nor follow after 
them : for as the lightning, when it lighteneth out of 
the one part under the heaven, shineth unto the other 
part under heaven ; so shall be the coming of the Son 
of man." 

It is useless to busy ourselves with prophetic 
arithmetic. The key of Daniel's mystical figures hangs 
at God's girdle. And the question, " When comest 
thou ? " is of far less importance than " W T hat wilt thou 
have me to do ? " Hear then the conclusion of the 
whole matter : " Watch ! And again I say unto you, 



The Second Advent 187 

Watch ! For yet a very little while and he that cometh 
shall come and shall not tarry." A brave song was 
that of Charles Kingsley : 

" Who would sit down and sigh for a lost Age of Gold 

When the Lord of all ages is here ? 
True hearts will leap up at the trumpet of God, 

And those who can suffer, can dare. 
Each old Age of Gold was an Iron Age too, 
And the meekest of saints can find stern work to do, 

In the Day of the Lord at hand ! " 

On the famous "dark day" in 1870 the General 
Assembly of the State of Connecticut in session at 
Hartford was greatly alarmed by the unaccountable 
veiling of the sun at high noon. A whisper passed 
among the legislators that this might possible be the 
end of the world. At this juncture Colonel Daven- 
port arose and moved that candles be brought and 
that they proceed with the work in hand. "For," 
he said, " if this is indeed the end of the world, I am 
sure the Master can find us no better employed than 
in attending to our appointed tasks." 

Here is the Master's word : " Let your loins be 
girded about — as for labor — and your lamps burning — 
as in vigil — and be ye yourselves like unto men look- 
ing for their lord ; that, when he cometh and knocketh, 
at even or at midnight, or at cock-crowing or in the 
morning, they may straightway open unto him. Watch, 
therefore : for ye know not on what day your Lord 
cometh. He who testifieth these things saith, Yea : 
I come quickly. Amen : come, Lord Jesus ! " 



INDEX OF VERILY PASSAGES 



Matthew v. 18 


Chap. xxv. 


26 


XII. 


vi. 2, 5, 16 


XI. 


viii. 10 


XX. 


x. 15 


X. 


2 3 


XXVII. 


42 


XI. 


xi. 11 


X. 


xiii. 37 


X. 


xvi. 28 


XXVII. 


xvii. 20 


XX. 


xviii. 3 


II. 


13 


XXVI. 


18 


XXII. 


xix. 23 


XIV. 


28 


XI. 


xxi. 21 


XX. 


3i 


X. 


xxiv. 2, 34 


XXVII. 


xxiv. 47 


XI. 


XXV. 12 


XII. 


40-45 


XIII. 


Mark in. 28 


IV. 


viii. 12 


VIII. 


xii. 43 


XV. 


xiv. 9 


XI. 


18 


XXIV. 


25 


XXVI. 


30 


XXIV. 


Luke iv. 24 


XVIII. 


xii. 37 


XXIII. 


xviii. 29, 30 


XI. 


xxi. 32 


XXVII. 


xxiii. 43 


XXVI. 



Page 
166 

77 

68 
127 

57 
177 

68 

57 

57 

177 

127 

7 
170 

145 
88 
68 

127 

57 

177 

68 

77 
82 

20 

45 

98 

68 

158 

170 

158 

117 

153 

68 

177 

170 



189 



i go Index of Verily Passages 

Page 
John i. 51 xvii. 112 

1 

105 
12 

34 
12 

27 

44 

105 

12 

39 
153 
105 
123 

52 
137 
158 



1.51 




XVII. 


m. 3, 5, 11 


1. 


v. 19 




XVI. 


24, 


25 


III. 


25 




VI. 


vi. 26, 


32, 47, S3 


III. 


viii. 34 




V. 


5 1 




VI. 


58 




XVI. 


x. 1 




III. 


xii. 24 




VII. 


xiii. 16 




XXIII. 


20 




XVI. 


xiv. 12 




XIX. 


xvi. 20 




IX. 


2 3 




XXI. 


xxi. 18 




XXIV. 



INDEX OF ALL SCRIPTURE PASS- 
AGES 





Page 






Page 


Ps. cxviii. 25, 26 


182 


Matt. 


xxiv. 1 


179 


Jonah i. 1-4, 15, 17; 


ii. 




2 


177, 179 


1, 10; iii. 


1- 




32-34 


177, 179 


3, 5, 10 


47 




34 


177 


Zech. viii. 5 


11 




47 


68,76 


ix. 9, 10 


184 




XXV. 12 


77,78 


Mai. iii. 8-10 


92 




40 


84 


Matthew v. 18 


166 




40-45 


82 


26 


77,8i 


Mark 


iii. 28 


20, 21 


vi. 1 


7i 




29 


21 


2,5 


68,71 




viii. 12 


45,48 


16 


68,72 




x. 20-22 


95 


viii. 10 


127, 134 




xii. 43 


98 


x. 15 


57,64 




xiv. 9 


68, 74 


2 3 


177, 181 




18 


158, i59 


42 


68,73 




25 


170, 172 


». 7-9 


58 




30 


158, 160 


11 


57,58 


Luke 


ii. 17-21 


93 


xiii. 22 


93 




iv. 18-19 


118 


37 


57 




24 


117, 118 


xvi. 4 


48 




x. 35 


96 


13 


147 




xi. 47-51 


180 


27, 28 


181 




xii. 10 


20 


28 


177 




31-40 


153 


xvii. 20 


127 




37 


153, 154 


xviii. 3 


7 




47 


22 


11-14 


11 




xiii- 34-35 


182 


l 3 


170, 175 




xviii. 29 


68, 70 


15-18 


149 




3° 


68 


18 


145 




xxi. 29-32 


180 


xix. 23, 24 


88,94 




3 2 * 


177 


28 


68,69 




xxii. 32 


161 


xxi. 21 


127 




xxiii. 43 


170, 171 


28-32 


66 




xxiv. 25 


5 2 


3 1 


57 


John 


i- 5 1 


112, 113 


33-41 


26 




iii. 1 -2 1 


2 



I 9 I 



192 Index of all Scripture Passages 



John 





Page 






Page 


3.5. Ir 


1 


John 


23 


137 


v. 19 


105, 106 




xx. 19-23 


147 


24, 25 


12, 14, 35 




xxi. 18 


164 


25 


34 


Acts 


i. 8 


124 


vi. 26, 32, 47, 


53 12, 14 


Romans 


i. 18-23 


64 


viii. 34-3 6 


27 




ii- 13-15 


64 


5i 


34, 36 




vii. 25 


30 


58 


105, 106 


1 Cor. 


xv. 20, 51, 52, 


54-57 51 


x. 1 


12 


Gal. 


iv. 22-31 


30 


i-7 


15 


Eph. 


hi. 14-19 


126 


xii. 24 


39 




iv. 13 


11 


xiii. 1-17 


153 




30 


24 


16 


153, J 54 


1 Thess 


. v. 19 


25 


20 


105, 106 


1 Tim. 


iv. 8 


70 


xiv. 12 


123 


Heb. 


vi. 4-6 


21 


17 


126 


1 John 


v. 16 


21 


xvi. 20 


5 2 .53 


Rev. 


xxi. 2-3 


59 



NOV 9 1903 



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